New Releases by John Maynard Keynes

Reproduction of the original: Indian Currency and Finance by John Maynard Keynes

"The Economic Consequences of the Peace is one of those rare books that seem to exude brilliance, power and polemical passion from the opening page..." -The Guardian The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) is a book written and published by the British economist John Maynard Keynes. After the First World War, Keynes attended the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 as a delegate of the British Treasury. In his book, he argued for a much more generous peace, not out of a desire for justice or fairness - these are aspects of the peace that Keynes does not deal with - but for the sake of the economic well-being of all of Europe, including the Allied Powers, which the Treaty of Versailles and its associated treaties would prevent. The book was a best-seller throughout the world and was critical in establishing a general opinion that the treaties were a "Carthaginian peace" designed to crush the defeated Central Powers, especially Germany. It helped to consolidate American public opinion against the treaties and against joining the League of Nations. The perception by much of the British public that Germany had been treated unfairly was, in turn, a crucial factor in later public support for the appeasement of Hitler. The success of the book established Keynes'' reputation as a leading economist, especially on the left. When Keynes was a key player in establishing the Bretton Woods system in 1944, he remembered the lessons from Versailles as well as the Great Depression. The Marshall Plan, which was promulgated to rebuild Europe after the Second World War, was similar to the system proposed by Keynes in The Economic Consequences of the Peace. A True Classic for All Lovers of Economics, History, and Political Theory!

Of the fifteen famous scientists, economists and statesmen sketched in this collection of essays, which was first published in 1933, John Maynard Keynes was directly acquainted with all but three. The unique quality of immediacy in these biographical fragments contributes immensely to our more intimate appreciation of the historical significance of these men. This volume is made up of two parts: The first part, titled Sketches of Politicians, includes chapters on Lloyd George, Bonar Law, Lord Oxford and Sir Winston Churchill. The greater portion of the second part, Lives of Economists, is taken up with the lives of Robert Malthun, Alfred Marshall and F. Y. Edgeworth. All are literature, and the reader needn’t be an economist or a specialist to enjoy the excellent flavor of Keynes’ style of writing.

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was written by the English economist John Maynard Keynes. The book, generally considered to be his magnum opus, is largely credited with creating the terminology and shape of modern macroeconomics. Published in February 1936, it sought to bring about a revolution, commonly referred to as the "Keynesian Revolution", in the way economists thought - especially in relation to the proposition that a market economy tends naturally to restore itself to full employment after temporary shocks. Regarded widely as the cornerstone of Keynesian thought, the book challenged the established classical economics and introduced important concepts such as the consumption function, the multiplier, the marginal efficiency of capital, the principle of effective demand and liquidity preference. The central argument of The General Theory is that the level of employment is determined, not by the price of labour as in neoclassical economics, but by the spending of money (aggregate demand). Keynes argues that it is wrong to assume that competitive markets will in the long run deliver full employment or that full employment is the natural, self-righting, equilibrium state of a monetary economy. On the contrary, under-employment and under-investment are likely to be the natural state unless active measures are taken. One implication of The General Theory is that an absence of competition is not the main issue regarding unemployment, and that even reducing wages or benefits have no major effect.

John Maynard Keynes is the great British economist of the twentieth century whose hugely influential work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and * is undoubtedly the century''s most important book on economics--strongly influencing economic theory and practice, particularly with regard to the role of government in stimulating and regulating a nation''s economic life. Keynes''s work has undergone significant revaluation in recent years, and "Keynesian" views which have been widely defended for so long are now perceived as at odds with Keynes''s own thinking. Recent scholarship and research has demonstrated considerable rivalry and controversy concerning the proper interpretation of Keynes''s works, such that recourse to the original text is all the more important. Although considered by a few critics that the sentence structures of the book are quite incomprehensible and almost unbearable to read, the book is an essential reading for all those who desire a basic education in economics. The key to understanding Keynes is the notion that at particular times in the business cycle, an economy can become over-productive (or under-consumptive) and thus, a vicious spiral is begun that results in massive layoffs and cuts in production as businesses attempt to equilibrate aggregate supply and demand. Thus, full employment is only one of many or multiple macro equilibria. If an economy reaches an underemployment equilibrium, something is necessary to boost or stimulate demand to produce full employment. This something could be business investment but because of the logic and individualist nature of investment decisions, it is unlikely to rapidly restore full employment. Keynes logically seizes upon the public budget and government expenditures as the quickest way to restore full employment. Borrowing the * to finance the deficit from private households and businesses is a quick, direct way to restore full employment while at the same time, redirecting or siphoning

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The essays in this volume show Keynes''s attempts to influence the course of events by public persuasion over the period of 1919-40. In the light of subsequent history, Essays in Persuasion is a remarkably prophetic volume covering a wide range of issues in political economy. In articles on the Versailles Treaty. John Maynard Keynes foresaw all too clearly that excessive Allied demands for reparations and indemnities would lead to the economic collapse of Germany. In Keynes''s essays on inflation and deflation, the reader can find ideas that were to become the foundations of his most renowned treatise, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). With startling accuracy Keynes forecast the economic fluctuations that were to beset the economies of Europe and the United States and even proposed measures which, if heeded at the time, might have warded off an era of world-wide depression. His views on Soviet Russia, on the decline of laissez-faire, and the possibilities of economic growth are as relevant today as when Keynes originally set them forth.

"The Economic Consequences of the Peace" gave economist John Maynard Keynes a huge but controversial influence on perceptions of the peace treaty signed after World War I. John Maynard Keynes was not only a brilliant economist, but a superb writer with a keen eye for the foibles of the great men of his time. "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" is a must read for anyone interested in the Versailles Peace Treaty and the aftermath of its signing. Even today, the power of Keynes'' argument is evident. Though Keynes admitted that the allies might not hold Germany to all the economic terms of the treaty, he still felt strongly that many of the terms of the treaty, whether enforced or not, discouraged sound planning by German investors, companies, and its government, and unnecessarily impoverished the German people. As pointed out in his classic book, Keynes felt this was bad for not just Germany, but all of Europe.

A passage from the book... The power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked characteristic of mankind. Very few of us realize with conviction the intensely unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable, temporary nature of the economic organization by which Western Europe has lived for the last half century. We assume some of the most peculiar and temporary of our late advantages as natural, permanent, and to be depended on, and we lay our plans accordingly. On this sandy and false foundation we scheme for social improvement and dress our political platforms, pursue our animosities and particular ambitions, and feel ourselves with enough margin in hand to foster, not assuage, civil conflict in the European family. Moved by insane delusion and reckless self-regard, the German people overturned the foundations on which we all lived and built. But the spokesmen of the French and British peoples have run the risk of completing the ruin, which Germany began, by a Peace which, if it is carried into effect, must impair yet further, when it might have restored, the delicate, complicated organization, already shaken and broken by war, through which alone the European peoples can employ themselves and live. In England the outward aspect of life does not yet teach us to feel or realize in the least that an age is over. We are busy picking up the threads of our life where we dropped them, with this difference only, that many of us seem a good deal richer than we were before. Where we spent millions before the war, we have now learnt that we can spend hundreds of millions and apparently not suffer for it. Evidently we did not exploit to the utmost the possibilities of our economic life.

This new edition of Keynes'' classic text includes a foreword by Paul Krugman.

There is, first of all, the distinction between that part of our belief which is rational and that part which is not. If a man believes something for a reason which is preposterous or for no reason at all, and what he believes turns out to be true for some reason not known to him, he cannot be said to believe it rationally, although he believes it and it is in fact true. On the other hand, a man may rationally believe a proposition to be probable, when it is in fact false. -from Chapter II: Probability in Relation to the Theory of Knowledge" His fame as an economist aside, John Maynard Keynes may be best remembered for saying, "In the long run, we are all dead." That phrase may well be the most succinct expression of the theory of probability every uttered. For a longer explanation of the premise that underlies much of modern mathematics and science, Keynes''s A Treatise on Probability is essential reading. First published in 1920, this is the foundational work of probability theory, which helped establish the author''s enormous influence on modern economic and even political theories. Exploring aspects of randomness and chance, inductive reasoning and logical statistics, this is a work that belongs in the library of any interested in numbers and their application in the real world. AUTHOR BIO: British economist JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES (1883-1946) also wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), The End of Laissez-Faire (1926), The Means to Prosperity (1933), and General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936).

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) was the most influential economist of the first half of the twentieth century. During both world wars he was an adviser to the British treasury, and his theory of government stimulation of the economy through deficit spending influenced Franklin D. Roosevelt''s "New Deal" administration. The mass unemployment caused by the Great Depression inspired his most famous work, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1935-36). Keynes first gained widespread prominence immediately following World War I, when he attended the Versailles peace conference as an economic adviser to British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Disgusted with the harshly punitive and unrealistic provisions of the Versailles Treaty, as well as the political chicanery and general incompetence of the chief participants, he published The Economic Consequences of the Peace in 1919. This book gained a good deal of notoriety because of its withering portraits of both French premier Georges Clemenceau and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. Keynes described Clemenceau as motivated only by shortsighted nationalistic goals and vindictiveness, which aimed at crippling Germany for generations no matter what the consequences to the rest of Europe. He found fault with Wilson for his ivory tower idealism, lack of diplomatic savvy, and unfamiliarity with the political realities of Europe. This ineffectual combination ultimately dashed his best hopes for a League of Nations and a just resolution to the war in Europe. In a point-by-point analysis Keynes makes clear the ruinous consequences of the treaty to all of Europe and proposes substantial modifications. Unfortunately, few appreciated Keynes''s prescience, and he saw his worst fears realized in the rise of Hitler and the devastation of World War II. In The End of Laissez-Faire (1926) he presents a brief historical review of laissez-faire economic policy. Though he agrees in principle that a marketplace of free individuals pursuing their own self-interest without government interference has a better chance of improving society''s economic situation than socialist alternatives, he suggests that government can play a constructive role in protecting individuals from the worst harms of capitalism''s cycles, especially as concerns unemployment. Other useful government functions are the dissemination of information relating to business conditions, encouraging savings and investment along "nationally productive channels," and forming a national policy about the size of population. Keynes''s brilliant mind and lucid writing are evident on every page. Both of these works are still well worth reading for his many stimulating ideas and profound knowledge of economics.