The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money: A Reader's Companion

ISBN: 1804295922

Author: Mann, Geoff

Condition: New

An engaging chapter-by-chapter guide to Keynes General Theory, the most important economics text of the last centuryWhen John Maynard Keynes published The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in the middle of the Great Depression, he predicted it would revolutionize economics.He was right. The book was celebrated as the destruction of free-market reason, cursed as a justification for government meddling, and denounced as an elite attempt to make capitalism easier to swallow-but few would deny that it upended a century of liberal capitalist common sense. Keynesianism changed how people understood market-based economies, and, maybe more than any other book, The General Theory helped shape the twentieth century. And yet, hardly anyone has read it. What exactly did Keynes say that caused such a storm? What ideas convinced so many he had revolutionized economics?This readers companion answers those questions. It is a supplement to Geoff Manns In the Long Run We Are All Dead: Keynesianism, Political Economy and Revolution, but it is also a beginners guide to The General Theory useful for anyone interested in what the book actually says and does not say. It is straightforward and accessible, but it doesnt skimp on the detail. It explains Keyness ideas, the reasons he thought they were new, and the older theories he hoped to supplant.It walks the reader through the book chapter by chapter, laying out the argument piece by piece, in the order Keynes himself did. As we enter the twenty-first century, in the midst of the greatest crisis of capitalism since Keyness time and many are calling for his return, this companion is a great resource. We must understand the ideas we resurrect.