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John Maynard Keynes | |
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| Born | 5 June 1883 Cambridge, England, United Kingdom |
| Died | 21 April 1946 (aged 62) Tilton, England, United Kingdom |
| Field of study | Bourgeois economics |
John Maynard Keynes (5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946) was a British bourgeois economist whose economic theories became the foundation of Keynesianism. Keynes was also a key economic advisor of the British government during the interwar period. Keynesianism meanwhile would serve as the dominant economic school in the West from the Second World War until the 70s when it was replaced by Neoliberalism.
His 1936 book A General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money attempted to explain the causes of economic crises. He blamed insufficient consumer demand for the crises and advocated for the state to increase investment and profit by lowering wages. His proposed policies regarding inflation and war spending would worsen the living conditions of the proletariat.[1] Keynes did not want countries from the Global South to participate in the Bretton Woods Conference and called the meeting a "monstrous monkey-house".[2]
Early life[edit | edit source]
John Maynard Keynes was born on 5 June 1883 in the city of Cambridge. Keynes was born into a Victorian elite family and his father, John Neville Keynes, was also an economist who lectured at University of Cambridge. Keynes attended Eton College, the school of the British elite, before going to King's College at the University of Cambridge where he studied mathematics and later economics.[3]
Career[edit | edit source]
Keynes served as the editor of The Economic Journal from 1911 to 1937. During the First World War he worked for the Treasury which allowed him to attend the Versailles peace conference. Keynes condemned the resulting treaty and was sharply critical of it in his work: The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Post-war, Keynes went into the railway business to make his fortune as part of the bourgeoisie whilst also working to revive the ailing Liberal Party.[3] Keynes was self aware of being part of the bourgeoisie and thus refused to join the Labour Party:
"To begin with, it is a class party, and the class is not my class. If I am going to pursue sectional interests at all, I shall pursue my own. When it comes to the class struggle as such, my local and personal patriotisms,like those of everyone else, except certain unpleasant zealous ones, are attached to my own surroundings. I can be influenced by what seems to me to be justice and good sense; but the class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie."
— John Maynard Keynes, "Am I a Liberal?" , 1925
Furthermore when he visited the Soviet Union in 1925 he wrote:
"How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish,exalts the boorish proletariat above bourgeois and the intelligentsia who, whatever their faults, are the quality in life and surely carry the seeds of all human advancement?"
— John Maynard Keynes, A Short View of Russia, 1925
In 1929 he was made advisor to the Macmillan Committee and was placed in charge of giving economic advice to Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. After the Wall Street crash hit in October 1929 Keynes became interested in the crisis and resulting Great Depression, writing the key works Treatise on Money and The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. During the Second World War, Keynes rejoined the Treasury and would go on to represent Britain in the Bretton Woods Conference. By this time though his health was failing, having suffered a heart attack in 1937, and when a second heart attack hit, Keynes died on 21 April 1946.[3]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Political Economy: 'Economic Doctrines of the Capitalist Epoch; The Further Degeneration of Bourgeois Economic Science. Present-day Bourgeois Political Economy' (1954). [MIA]
- ↑ Vijay Prashad (2008). The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World: 'Buenos Aires' (p. 68). [PDF] The New Press. ISBN 9781595583420 [LG]
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Houben, Henri (2011). A Marxist Critic on the Keynesian Analysis of the Economic Crisis. World Review of Political Economy, vol.2, Issue 2 (pp. 219-34).