Abstract
This chapter is concerned with the important question of how and to what extent great economists such as J.M. Keynes, F. H. Knight, J.R. Hicks, P. A. Samuelson, Y. Takata, and M. Morishima have been intermingled with each other. Our discussion focuses on the two key concepts in the labor market—involuntary unemployment and “involuntary employment.” On the one hand, there are so many persons in the street who are willing to work at the existing wages but cannot find jobs because of a shortage of the effective demand as a whole. This is clearly the issue of involuntary unemployment, which has been energetically tackled by J. M. Keynes and his followers since the 1930s. On the other hand, since the 1990s, there also have emerged so many people who must work unwillingly for their survivals at the minimal level of wages. This is a new issue of “involuntary employment” or “non-regular workers,” which has recently been investigated by Nobuaki Takahashi, a rising Japanese economist. Although the Takahashi approach is an attractive one, it nevertheless seems to remain at the embryo stage, thus requiring further developments in many ways. The second Keynes would urgently be needed.
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For details, see Lekachman (1964).
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Nobuo Okishio was one of my respected teachers at Kobe University. It was quite unfortunate that almost all of his works were written in Japanese.
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Mr. Tanaka’s complaint or similar accusations can be heard everywhere and every day in Japanese newspapers today. Japan is no longer an ideal class-less society!
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Sakai, Y. (2019). Involuntary Unemployment Versus “Involuntary Employment”: J.M. Keynes and Beyond. In: J.M. Keynes Versus F.H. Knight. Evolutionary Economics and Social Complexity Science, vol 18. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8000-6_5
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