Abstract
Chapters 11 and 12 of the General Theory contain two different views of investment. Keynes presented the two chapters as complementary, but others have interpreted them as antithetical:
Chapter 11 shows us the arithmetic of the marginal efficiency of capital and its relation with interest rates, a matter for actuaries and slide-rules. Chapter 12 reveals the hollowness of all this. The material for the slide-rules is absent, or arbitrary. Investment is an irrational activity, or a non-rational one. Surmise and assumption about what is happening or about to happen are themselves the source of these happenings, men make history in seeking to apprehend it.
(Shackle 1983: 130. First published 1967)
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© 1994 Chidem Kurdas
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Kurdas, C. (1994). Keynes and the Post-Keynesians: Arbitary Expectations. In: Theories of Technical Change and Investment. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23474-5_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23474-5_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-23476-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-23474-5
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