Keynes and After - Michael Stewart

Keynes’s ideas have revolutionized our lives. Before the publication of the General Theory, economists were on the touchline, passively watching the economy perform; now they are on the field as players, manipulating the conditions of economic life. Yet Keynes was not merely a theoretical economist. During both wars he was probably the most important figure at the Treasury, and the modern International Monetary Fund is partly his creation. Since the 1930s millions of people who have never heard of Keynes’ work have owed their livelihood to his ideas and policies.

But if we are all Keynesians now, are our problems the by-products of the Keynesian system? Can his ideas, which have banished the spectre of international recession, cope with the difficulties of an inflationary world? Is full employment threatened by a shortage of international liquidity, and is persistent unemployment in the U.S. an indication that Keynesian theory cannot answer the problems of automation? Are rising prices inevitable, and why is Britain constantly running into balance-of-payments crises? These questions are posed and answered in this new Pelican by Michael Stewart, whose clear and straightforward account of Keynes’ life and ideas and of their status in the modern world should be a boon to intelligent people of any age and educational level.