This book provides an overview or an introduction to the development of economic thought from the time of the early Greek and Roman writers to the mid-20th century. It provides a basic, no frills account of how economic ideas which were first cited by the early philosophers were later refined by the writings of the medieval schoolmen and still later by the contributions of the mercantilists and physiocrats. All these ideas were collected and synthesized by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations which provided the basis for economics as a formal subject of inquiry. From Smith’s magnum opus emerged the works of the classical economists, most notably, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and John Stuart Mill. Their work was not left unchallenged by the Utopian Socialists, the Associationists, and other social reformers and most importantly by Karl Marx. Nevertheless, classical economics was not to be denied thanks to Alfred Marshall who succeeded in fusing the Austrians’ concept of utility on the demand side with the classicists’ cost of production on the supply side of the market to provide a new theory of value. He gave new life to the classicists with his Neo-Classicism, the basis for microeconomics, to be followed fifty years later by Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money and the ushering in of macroeconomics.
Over the course of his professional life, John Maynard Keynes altered his views from free trade in the classical tradition to restricted foreign trade, and ultimately, at the end of his career, back to his original position. There is no general agreement among economists as to whether Keynes ended his career in the camp of the free traders or aligned himself with the protectionists. John Maynard Keynes: Free Trader or Protectionist? seeks an answer to this question by analyzing Keynes’ own views on this issue, as stated in his major publications, letters, speeches, testimony before government bodies, newspaper articles, participation in conferences, and other sources. Through this detailed review of what Keynes himself had to say on the issue as opposed to what others have alleged, this book strives to make a significant contribution to the resolution of this issue.
Over the course of his life, Keynes often abandoned ideas previously developed and at times assumed positions which were contradictory to his earlier thought. This inconsistency, it is charged, is especially true of his thinking in the field of international economics where he alternated between fee trade and protection. This book, first published in 1987, examines in detail the positions that Keynes adopted in the years 1909-1946.
Most works on John Maynard Keynes deal with his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money and his theory of unemployment. Much less well-known are his publications on money, finance, and international trade. This book fills that void by providing an analysis of Keynes’ works from “Indian Currency and Finance” to “The Proposal for a Currency Union.” It seeks to show that his concerns extended beyond his magnum opus to include the monetary and financial concerns of Great Britain and the world at large.
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