Keynes’s Response to ‘Keynesian’ Economics

Abstract

If I have correctly interpreted the primary emphasis of Keynes’s policy initiatives and the basic approach of his theoretical argument, then there can be no question that ‘Keynesian’ economics bears only the slightest similarity to Keynes’s economics. Moreover, the reality is that the identification of a 17–page paper (Hicks, 1937) with the General Theory is justified in a manner so trivial as to be beyond belief. Most economists have accepted a short sentence from Keynes, ‘I found it very interesting and really have next to nothing to say by way of criticism’ (31 March 1937, CW XIV, p. 79), as sufficient grounds to ignore his work in its entirety.