Talk:The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Criticism?

It seems as though adding a section on critique and criticism of Keynes's work by other schools of thought (ie. the Austrian school of economics, or monetarists) would significantly add to the detail and overall effect of the article... just a thought —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.105.149.62 (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Not sure if needed. The article already contains this quote:

"If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing." (p. 129)

If that's not enough to convince a person to stay away from keynesianism, then nothing will. 19:26, 15 April 2013 (UTC)83.134.164.189 (talk)

If someone dislikes that scenario, is that because Keynes was incorrect or because reality is ugly? Certainly World War II was a great boost for the world economy and lifted it out of the Great Depression, and it's more or less the same idea - artificial demand will stimulate the economy even if it's not improving anyone's standard of living. -- Beland (talk) 21:43, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

working through Blablablob's edits

ref http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=The_General_Theory_of_Employment,_Interest,_and_Money&oldid=241223575

The deleted section is neither an opinion nor original research, but reflects the consensus of the many academic references listed at the foot of the article. Simem007 (talk) 11:58, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=The_General_Theory_of_Employment,_Interest,_and_Money&oldid=241224915

on redistibutive taxation see GT pp. 372-374 Simem007 (talk) 12:14, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

the theory uses the competitive framework of Marshall and Pigou: a formal method which is of course an abstraction, like all economic theory. There is consensus that the theory does not depend on the assumption of imperfect competition or monopoly. Simem007 (talk) 09:08, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=The_General_Theory_of_Employment,_Interest,_and_Money&oldid=241262923

These are the major changes of course. I appreciate any editor must find it galling to have large sections of text, much laboured over, deleted (I know I do). Nevertheless my reasons for objecting are as follows:

The first paragraph of the proposed overview introduces the book as essentially a work on policy, which it really is not,except for one chapter out of 24. The second dives straight into technical terms without setting out the basic point of the book, about whether a competitive market economy tends naturally toward full employment equilibrium.

The third paragraph again suggests that the book is mainly a defence of fiscal policy, which is misleading.

The sentence about Kalecki and Wigfoss almost suggests Keynes was a plagiarist. There was nothing new about the idea of effective demand (Malthus, Marx) but Keynes was the first to express it in the theoretical language of neoclassical economics. It is certainly true that his public position (and activist publishing policy) helped him get the world's attention.

The comments on Keynes's writing style are a matter of opinion. Try reading his Treatise on Probability! The General Theory is a difficult read: so are most modern advanced macro texts.

On the "main points"

Keynes denied any "in-built tendency to correct deficient demand" and his theory is not about sluggish adjustment (that is the New Keynesian interpretation of Keynes)

Keynes said nothing significant about economic growth in this book.

The point about the relative speed of effectiveness of fiscal policy is not his (as above). The GT is not about "stabilization" in the modern sense.

The point about monetary policy ineffectiveness is presented, again, as a case for fiscal policy. Yet Keynes wrote about cheap money, public investment and boosting consumption through death duties (balanced budget).

The editor is right that many modern economists would agree with the list of "main points" because they represent the New Keynesian consensus about Keynes. As Mankiw put it, if that is not what Keynes actually said, so much the worse for Keynes!

Enough for now Simem007 (talk) 09:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

What should this article be aiming for?

Hello all, I can't comment on all the changes above, because I haven't been following. But I think that everyone could agree to these points:

• This article should systematically summarise the book
• It should document its reception, its influence academically (e.g. the very idea of macroeconomics) and perhaps the counter-theories (e.g. Friedman's thesis that the Great Depression was all about monetary policy)
• It should have some description of the historical context and the revolution in government policy that followed
• It should carefully reference everything. This last one ought to go without saying, but I know it's often the habit in economics texts to describe what's in a work, without giving pages, etc. There's lots of different editions, which could be a problem, so we should pick ONE online source, and not refer to pages but to chapter and part numbers. I prefer the marxists.org one, but I think for the sake of neutrality, it's better to go with the University of Adelaide's edition, which is also good.

Now, what I had done previously is put up a section for every chapter. It got deleted at some point. I think the "famous quotations" section is not very helpful, and it might be out of the WP:STYLE guide. We can integrate the famous quotes in the summary of the book. If not going for a section for every chapter, at least, the "overview" section should be split according to the 6 book titles, so we know which bit is coming from where. What do you think? And if you agree, can you keep these points in mind with new edits? Wikidea 12:12, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, Wikidea, I think this is most helpful, but also very challenging. E.g.

• it is really difficult to summarise this book - not impossible, but really difficult to do it justice. Take a lot of time and it will also become a very long article! Perhaps better simply to refer to published introductions? I noted the list of sections but without any (much?) content they did not seem helpful to me. What level are you going to pitch it at? First year undergrad, grad school?
• context is good but in this case it tends to obscure the content of the actual book. Perhaps these are matters for inclusion in separate articles, e.g. the Keynes article?
• references essential. All the print copies are standardised, I assume marxists and adelaide follow it.

Thanks for the intervention. Simem007 (talk) 21:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello Simem, yes, it is ambitious to summarise, but I think there's no rush either! To give an example, a (I think Californian) tutorial group summarised Capital, Volume I - they did a good job (patchy, needs better formatting, but pretty remarkable) though that's probably too long; why I just suggested going for subsections with the book titles, not every one of those twenty odd chapters (and there can always be sub articles that really summarise every chapter!). I suppose you should just aim high, and if it falls short, well you still end up with something better than if we aimed average. That Krugman summary is pretty good, if it could be properly split up. I tried a much smaller summary on the History of economic thought page. I'm not expecting that you do all the work, but if you felt like it, I'd have a look there. Just suggestions. Happy editing! Wikidea 22:07, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

---

book V (5) is missing !

just my first edit in WP, going to keep it simple.

Brunoadesse (talk) 03:47, 26 March 2015 (UTC)Brunoadesse

animal spirits

can someone explain a little on his "animal spirits"? Thanks! Jackzhp (talk) 19:13, 4 December 2008 (UTC) will be including this in the re-write! FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Preface is Missing

I'm curious why the book's preface is not included. There are four; English, French, German and Japanese. They each are important to the book. If you read them, you will have a different outlook and possibly a different opinion as to Keynes' therory. --Tumcclure (talk) 13:22, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

in the long run we're all dead

I've deleted this addition because of the change in tone and because it has a slight ideological edge to it. It is true that the GT is technically for the most part a short-period theory, but that does not mean that it does not have long run implications nor that Keynes was unconcerned with them (see Chapters 16 and 24 in particular). The famous quotation is from the Tract on Monetary Reform, when Keynes was still at his most Classical! The addition implied that it was to be found in the GT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Simem007 (talk • contribs) 16:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Test footnote format to link Free Full Text of Chapter 2

• Chapter 2: The Postulates of the Classical Economics

Wrongly attributed quote

In the "Endorsement" section, one sentence reads thus: "President Richard Nixon famously said in 1971 (ironically, shortly before Keynesian economics fell out of fashion) that 'We are all Keynesians now', a phrase often repeated by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman." As I was aware, it was Milton Friedman who first said it. I looked it up and confirmed my suspicions. In fact, this is from the (sourced) Wikipedia article on the phrase: "The phrase was first attributed to Milton Friedman in the December 31, 1965, edition of Time magazine. In the February 4, 1966, edition, Friedman wrote a letter clarifying that his original statement had been 'In one sense, we are all Keynesians now; in another, nobody is any longer a Keynesian.' In 1971, after taking the United States off the gold standard, Nixon was quoted as saying 'I am now a Keynesian in economics', which became popularly associated with Friedman's phrase." Although I believe it needs changing, I'm unsure whether I should change it or just eliminate it altogether. I feel that it's not quite appropriate to leave it in the "Endorsement" section, considering Milton Friedman was fervently anti-Keynesian and used it with a completely different meaning than Richard Nixon. Suggestions? Riffraff913 (talk) 18:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

totally inadequate

This article is totally inadequate and contains no criticism, much of which better explicates the book, anyway, for example by Harry Hazlitt http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Henry_Hazlitt

Hazlitt, etc

The page has proved fairly stable over the last 6 years although it still needs much work. However, I have taken out the references to Nazi Germany and Hazlitt because this is politics not economics. The book is not above criticism, of course, but please can we have criticism in an academic register rather than quotations of libertarian ideologues? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Simem007 (talk • contribs) 14:47, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

broken link

hi. the second of the External Links seems to be broken....--Roxette5 (talk) 07:17, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Infobox

Questions: why is the image of a later edition and not the first (or a least, an earlier edition)? Also, why is the publisher, media type, and pages also for such a late edition and not the 1st ed? Is this a notable edition ie. with an introduction from a notable economist? I propose adding a title to the image that it is a later edition and updating the other details to reflect the 1st ed. Later (a lot later:)) I will update the image with my 1946 English reprint of the 1st ed. thanks Coolabahapple (talk) 03:50, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Purpose of the article?

There was a question earlier about what the article should be aiming for, proposing as first bullet point that it should summarise the General Theory. I recently put a summary of the General Theory in the article on Keynesian economics. I don’t know if it’s to everyone’s taste, but it goes into a reasonable amount of detail and follows the text closely. I prefer it there to here because the subject-matter is economics and it’s a little artificial to exclude the contribution of the IS-LM curve, which fills a gap in the exposition.

I’ve put a link at the top of the summary section, but since the ‘Summary’ is actually a few memorable quotations I think something more drastic would be in order.

On the other hand there’s plenty to say about the General Theory besides outlining its contents. I would suggest this page limit itself to these other topics: literary, historical and critical. I’ve added a section on the writing of the General Theory in this spirit which seems to me moderately interesting and is painless to read. I may add another on the presentational style of the book. Colin.champion (talk) 13:57, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Observations on its readability

Well, gentle Wikipedians, I’ve added a section on the readability of the General Theory.

Another topic which it would be useful to discuss is the diversity of interpretations – those based on Book I, Book IV, or Chapter 12. I would only be capable of doing this in part.

At the same time the current section on criticisms mostly covers the book’s influence. I’m not sure if it’s worth having a section on criticism at all. Schumpeter remarks that “In Keynes’s case, merit and luck combined to blunt the edges of the criticism of some of those who were most competent to inflict injury”, which I agree with except that merit and luck had no hand in it. It took 2 years for anyone to understand the General Theory well enough to be able to pass useful comment, and by then the bird had flown.

Should I delete the summary? Or more reasonably, reduce it to an introduction sketching the book’s purpose and directing readers to the summary in Keynesian economics? Incidentally Raúl Rojas has another summary on his website (I link to it from the article). It’s a Book I interpretation. Colin.champion (talk) 09:22, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Is whether or not the book is easy to read important enough to mention in an encyclopedia article about it? It seems like the economics content is a lot more important. -- Beland (talk) 21:28, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I do think it's relevant. In The Price of Peace by Zachary D. Carter, Carter goes on at some length arguing that Keynes made the book purposefully obscure so that it would be shrouded in the mystique of arcane language.--DrMichaelWright (talk) 11:52, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

I really wonder what the purpose under this header is of the following line:

Keynes was an associate of Lytton Strachey and shared much of his outlook.[example needed][citation needed].

Could this line be made more clearly relevant or omitted?--DrMichaelWright (talk) 11:52, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Deleting it may be the wisest course, but Keynes, like Strachey, was a gadfly puncturing Victorian morality with elegant satire (eg. top of p362). I’m not an expert on Bloomsburyism, and if people don’t see merit in the mention of Strachey, the article will survive without it. Colin.champion (talk) 12:47, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

I've deleted as that seems better than having the unsightly tags. The mention had some merit - Strachey would have agreed with Lord's Keynes saying "Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking". It was probably partly said view that made LK depart from conventional development of his arguments in GT. Hence making the book hard to follow for many academics, while paradoxically making it more readable for some laypeople. But fleshing this out probably isn't worth the extra words it takes to explain, especially as I suspect that as time goes by, fewer young people interested in Keyne's economics will have had the pleasure of reading LS. FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:06, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Differences of interpretation, vital article

No one said don’t so I did – a cheerful saunter through the minefield of interpretations. I don’t plan any more substantive additions, though I shall make corrections that occur to me.

Should the talk page claim allegiance to British English spelling? That’s how I write myself, and labour is always spelt thus in the earlier contributions (though the usage is more cosmopolitan).

There’s a flag at the top of the talk page describing this as a ‘a level-4 vital article in Art’. I don’t see how any article can be defined as vital except on an agreed division of subject matter. I assume the intention is that an outline of the General theory is vital, and that it belongs here. A possible way to accomplish this would be move my existing summary across from ‘Keynesian economics’. This would give someone else the opportunity to write a summary of a different character there, and me an opportunity to expand what I’ve written. Or someone else could put a summary here. Colin.champion (talk) 09:06, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Vital articles is a project to identify the most important Wikipedia articles. This is to allow interested editors to prioritize improvements, and has also been used to produce offline versions of Wikipedia (such as on paper or DVD). Designation as "vital" doesn't mean anything is different is required of this article than otherwise would be, though the long-term goal is to get all vital articles to pass the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria. It does seem this article should be classified under economics, not art. -- Beland (talk) 21:35, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Asked for reclassification on Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles#The_General_Theory_of_Employment,_Interest_and_Money. -- Beland (talk) 21:40, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Summary added temporarily

I have added a summary of the General Theory – about 20kB. I don’t believe it belongs here. My plan, if it isn’t rejected, is to swap this summary with the slightly longer one in Keynesian economics, meanwhile exentending the long one to be still longer – about 40kB. I think then both summaries will be the right size for their locations.

Meanwhile I have reordered sections to some extent. I’m afraid my view of the section on ‘Reception’ is that it’s interesting and knowledgeable, but it’s almost wholly about Keynesian economics. I think someone should merge it into the other page.

I will flag this page as British English spelling, since no one has objected and it is entirely written this way. Colin.champion (talk) 12:53, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

I made this change. The account of the General Theory is now reasonably detailed. At the same time I deleted the 'See also' section which was an arbitrary (presumably unmaintained) selection of other articles on Keynesian economics. Colin.champion (talk) 11:26, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Split proposed

Having written rather lengthy accounts of the three Book V chapters, I’d like to break them out to a separate article to keep the main one down to a reasonable length. Colin.champion (talk) 16:47, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

A good plan, thanks for your outstanding work on this topic. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:08, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks FeydHuxtable, I’ve made the split. Colin.champion (talk) 17:08, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

The main image is not of the first edition

FWIW, the main image used is from a recent reissue, not the first edition (first edition cover: [1]). As the book was a landmark upon first publication, I think it much preferable to use the cover of the first edition if possible. Stephs758 (talk)

Good point. Fixed. Colin.champion (talk) 09:18, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Link to Keynes' Treatise on Probability

I have just added a quote of Keynes' citation of his A Treatise on Probability, as I feel this important to an understanding of the GT. I have tried to fit this in as best I could with the existing outline and style and to make the significance clear without too many distractions. Perhaps someone could review?

(Incidentally, the article seems to me to confuse summarising what Keynes wrote with 'helpful explanations', but I am not volunteering to do a major edit!) --Djmarsay (talk) 11:58, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Good addition- I seem to remember encountering many references to Keynes uncertainty v improbability distinction over the years, the quote seems well worth including. (To address your secondary point, I like the helpful explanations, much of which were added by good Colin Champion a few years back. Various WP:RSs on general theory - e.g. Hayes 2006 which I have on my desk right now - devotes much space to 'helpful explanations' - so I think it's fine to leave those in.) FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)