Dissent On Keynes

"Published under the auspices of the Ludwig von Mises Institute." Includes bibliographical references (p. [225]-243) and index.

John Maynard Keynes, then a rising young economist, participated in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 as chief representative of the British Treasury and advisor to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. He resigned after desperately trying and failing to reduce the huge demands for reparations being made on Germany. The Economic Consequences of the Peace is Keynes' brilliant and prophetic analysis of the effects that the peace treaty would have both on Germany and, even more fatefully, the world.

A bestselling economist tells us what both politicians and economists must learn to fix America's failing economic policies American economic policy ranks as something between bad and disgraceful. As leading economist Alan S. Blinder argues, a crucial cultural divide separates economic and political civilizations. Economists and politicians often talk -- and act -- at cross purposes: politicians typically seek economists' "advice" only to support preconceived notions, not to learn what economists actually know or believe. Politicians naturally worry about keeping constituents happy and winning elections. Some are devoted to an ideology. Economists sometimes overlook the real human costs of what may seem to be the obviously best policy -- to a calculating machine. In Advice and Dissent, Blinder shows how both sides can shrink the yawning gap between good politics and good economics and encourage the hardheaded but softhearted policies our country so desperately needs.

Some 18 essays by American institutional economist Klein (Pennsylvania State U.), written over the last two decades, are grouped under five major heads: institutionalism--a basic perspective; institutionalism and concentrated power; the role of the public sector; applied institutional economics; and the obligation of the economist. Paper edition (unseen), $22.50. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Here is Rothbard's mini-biography of Lord Keynes, one that makes use of all modern research to reconstruct Keynes's life and works in a way that is absolutely devastating. We read about his schooling, his secret societies, his political associations and sponsors - as well as his intellectual shifts and dodges throughout his life. -- from Mises Institute website

The principal ideas and theories of John Maynard Keynes are discusses as the significance of his contribution to economics and pointing out inconsistencies and contradictions in his theories.

Keynes was an elitist and pro-capitalist economist, whom the left should embrace with caution. But his analysis provides a concreteness missing from Marx and engages with critical issues of the modern world that Marx could not have foreseen. This book argues that a critical Marxist engagement can simultaneously increase the power of Keynes’s insight and enrich Marxism. To understand Keynes, whose work is liberally invoked but seldom read, Dunn explores him in the context of the extraordinary times in which he lived, his philosophy, and his politics. By offering a detailed overview of Keynes’s critique of mainstream economics and General Theory, Dunn argues that Keynes provides an enduringly valuable critique of orthodoxy. The book develops a Marxist appropriation of Keynes’s insights, arguing that a Marxist analysis of unemployment, capital and the role of the state can be enriched through such a critical engagement. The point is to change the world, not just to understand it. Thus the book considers the prospects of returning to Keynes, critically reviewing the practices that have come to be known as ‘Keynesianism’ and the limits of the theoretical traditions that have made claim to his legacy.

In a remarkably lucid and flowing style, Loren Okroi analyzes the ideas of three leading reformer-critics in the United States and places their main arguments in the context of the economic, social, and political history of postwar America. In so doing, he provides not only a skillful introduction to American social thought since the 1950s but also a wide-ranging examination of the contemporary failures of American liberal ideology. As he explicates the works of these three men--all of whom moved easily between the academic world and the arenas of politics, government, or journalism--it becomes clear that present policy debates have not even begun to resolve the dilemmas their writings have exposed. Millions of readers know J. K. Galbraith, the renowned Harvard economist and social theorist who developed the concept of the "New Industrial State"; Michael Harrington, the de facto leader of the American socialist movement who revealed the existence of the "other America"; and Robert Heilbroner, the incisive economic thinker who questioned the naive optimism of Americans even before it significantly eroded in the mid-1970s. In this book they emerge as individuals, as thinkers, and as part of a larger picture of American efforts to reconcile democratic values and humane social goals with modern corporate capitalism. The study begins with a portrait of the U.S. economy and society at the end of the Civil War and discusses the momentous changes brought about by the rapid industrialization that followed. The central portion revolves around Galbraith, Harrington, and Heilbroner and explores their contributions to the intellectual and political discourse on key issues confronting America in the decades after 1945: the evolutionary trajectory of managerial capitalism; the persistence of poverty and class divisions; the expansion of the welfare state and the public sector in general; and the assault on welfare capitalism by the New Right in the 1980s. The concluding chapter examines the causes and consequences of the fervent adherence of Americans to liberal ideology, the origins and philosophical bases of that set of beliefs, and its future prospects. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.