Post-Keynesian Thought

Abstract

The approaches to political economy which reflect post-Keynesian thought are there partly for historical reasons and, partly, because of logical associations. Post-Keynesianism is an extremely broad church. The overlaps at each end of a long spectrum of views are marginal, reflecting little more than a shared hostility towards mainstream neoclassical economics and methodology, IS/LM Keynesianism and the ‘fix-price’ Keynesianism of the ‘New Keynesians’ and certain French economists. Some post-Keynesians are working actively towards a synthesis of the principal strands. Others regard the search for a synthesis, for a general all-embracing structure, as a profound mistake; to quote Joan Robinson, a founding mother, a misguided attempt to replace ‘one box of tricks’ by another. Post-Keynesianism should be a situation-and-issue-specific method of doing political economy, a ‘horses for courses’ approach, itself an all-embracing structure at the methodological level.

To me, the expression post-Keynesian has a definite meaning; it applies to an economic theory or method of analysis which takes account of the difference between the future and the past.

Joan Robinson (1978: 12, emphasis in original)

Not previously published. I draw heavily on a joint paper with L. D. Spajic, ‘Post-Keynesianism’, in Shri Bhagwan Dahiya (ed.), The Current State of Economic Science, Vol. 2 (Rohtak, India: Spellbound, 1999) 904–34. I am grateful to Sheila Dow and Guiseppe Fontana for their comments on a draft of the essay.