Ann Pettifor argues that a failure to recognize the economist’s work guarantees further crises
THE-TLS.CO.UK
The indefatigable efforts of J. M. Keynes
Ann Pettifor argues that a failure to recognize the economist’s work gua
Times Literary Supplement
8月21日上午12:00 ·
Why a failure to recognize the economist’s work guarantees further crises
THE-TLS.CO.UK
The indefatigable efforts of J. M. Keynes
Footnotes to Plato is a TLS Online series appraising the works and legacies of the great thinkers and philosophers
Keynes—who was born on June 5th 1883—deserves to be remembered for much else besides his economic works. In addition to being an economist, the great man was also a boy genius, a civil servant, a national opinion-shaper, a lover, a connoisseur and aesthete, and a statesman
"If someone as economically literate and well-connected as Keynes found it difficult to time currencies, then the rest of us should think twice before believing we can do any better."
Economic history
A Keynes for all seasons
Nov 26th 2013, 13:30 by C.R.
作者: [英]J·M·凱恩斯《精英的聚會》譯者: 劉玉波 / 董波, 江蘇人民出版社, 1997-10,頁數: 527
內容簡介 · · · · · ·本書由文章、書信組成,通過描繪凱恩斯周圍人物的治學經歷,把百餘位傑出的經濟學家、哲學家、科學家、政壇人物串聯起來,從而勾畫出二戰前英國人物沉浮、大英帝國的衰落。作者簡介 · · · · · ·約翰·梅納德·凱恩斯(John Maynard Keynes, 1883年6月5日- 1946年4月21日),英國經濟學家。凱恩斯可謂經濟學界最具影響的人物之一。他的發表於1936年的主要作品《就業、利息和貨幣通論》引起了經濟學的革命。這部作品對人們對經濟學和政權在社會生活中作用的看法產生了深遠的影響。除《通論》外,凱恩斯另外兩部重要的經濟理論著作是《貨幣論》(A Tract on Monetary Reform 1923)和《貨幣論》(A Treatise on Money, 1930)。這兩部著作是其研究貨幣理論的代表作,但均未能脫出古典貨幣數量論的窠臼。
《精英的聚會》:《精英的聚會》的作者是英國二十世紀最偉大的經濟學家J・M・凱恩斯。由江蘇人民出版社於1998年出版。本書是凱恩斯的自傳體筆記。本書由文章,書信組成,通過描繪凱恩斯周圍人物的治學經歷,把百餘位傑出的經濟學家,哲學家,科學家,政壇人物串聯起來,從而勾畫出二戰前英國人物沉浮,大英帝國的衰落。《精英的聚會》 - 內容簡介《傳記文集》的初版於1933年問世。它由一些小品和片斷組成,那是凱恩斯在相當長的一段時期裡寫成的。最早的文章來源於《和平的經濟後果》一文中最終被凱恩斯刪去的部分。另外一些,包括關於博納·勞、阿斯奎思和埃德溫·蒙塔古的文章,是凱恩斯為《民族》周刊撰寫的小短文和備註。其他的,包括“偉大的維利爾斯血緣”,關於溫斯頓·丘吉爾的兩個備註,把托洛茨基和把弗蘭克·拉姆齊作為哲學家來寫的文章都來源於凱恩斯所寫的書評。而關於經濟學家們的文章則幾乎全部是登載於《經濟學雜誌》上的訃告,因為作為該雜誌的編輯,凱恩斯感到有責任對那些過去時代的代表人物給以嚴肅的評價。 1933年版中唯一的例外是他為馬爾薩斯所寫的文章,他1932年從事該文的寫作,關於此文的書信往來在他眾多函件中保留下來,印刷者根據這一手稿在1933年版中排印出來。1933年此書第二次印刷,除了一些微小的改動外,基本保持原狀。在其後的13年中,凱恩斯繼續從事這方面的寫作。 1951年,凱恩斯死後,魯珀特·哈特·戴維斯重印了本卷書,並且在杰弗裡·凱恩斯爵士的幫助下增補了凱恩斯後來所寫的三篇重要文章,它們是關於斯坦利·傑文斯和牛頓的文章以及關於瑪麗·馬歇爾夫人的引人入勝的傳記,而在《傳記文集》的首版中,“經濟學家的生活”這一部分正是題獻給馬歇爾夫人的。《精英的聚會》 - 作者簡介《精英的聚會》約翰·梅納德·凱恩斯約翰·梅納德·凱恩斯(JohnMaynardKeynes1883-1946),現代西方經濟學最有影響的經濟學家之一。1883年6月5日生於劍橋。 1902年進劍橋大學學數學,後從馬歇爾學經濟學,深受馬歇爾的賞識。 1906~1908年在印度事務部任職。 1908年起在劍橋大學任教。 1912~1946年任《經濟學》雜誌主編。 1913~1914年任皇家印度財政和貨幣委員會委員。 1915~1919年任英國財政部顧問。 1919年作為財政部的首席顧問出席巴黎和會,同年因寫《和平的經濟後果》而馳名。 1941年起任英格蘭銀行董事。 1942年被封為蒂爾頓男爵。 1944年出席布雷頓森林會議。他長期從貨幣數量的變化來解釋經濟現象的變動,主張實行管理通貨以穩定資本主義經濟。 1929~1933年世界經濟危機後提出了失業和經濟危機的原因是有效需求不足的理論,鼓吹國家全面調節經濟生活。他的經濟學說在西方國家有廣泛影響,被稱為“凱恩斯主義”。主要著作有《印度貨幣和財政》(1913)、《貨幣改革論》(1923)、《貨幣論》(二卷,1903)、《就業、利息和貨幣通論》(1936)、《如何支付戰爭》 (1940)等。
凯恩斯可谓经济学界最具影响的人物之一。他的发表于1936年的主要作品《就业、利息和货币通论》引起了经济学的革命。这部作品对人们对经济学和政权在社会生活中作用的看法产生了深远的影响。
除《通论》外,凯恩斯另外两部重要的经济理论著作是《货币论》(A Tract on Monetary Reform 1923)和《货币论》(A Treatise on Money, 1930)。这两部著作是其研究货币理论的代表作,但均未能脱出古典货币数量论的窠臼。
IN THE years since the publication in 1936 of "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money", John Maynard Keynes’s name has been irretrievably linked to the idea that fiscal stimulus should be used to combat recession during downturns. Such ideas came to dominate economics in the 30 years after the second world war, so much so that Republican president Richard Nixon declared in 1971 that “we are all Keynesians now”.
Although Keynes’s ideas went out of favour in the 1980s and 1990s, they came back into fashion as the financial crisis of 2007-09 unfolded. The use of fiscal stimulus to fight recessions in America, Britain and Asia led Keynes’s most prominent biographer, Robert Skidelsky, to declare the “return of the master”. Keynes's notoriety among the public rose so much that a hip-hop video of him arguing the merits of fiscal stimulus with his rival, F. A. Hayek, went viral on YouTube back in 2010.
But whether Keynes’s ideas were ever as simple or consistent as some modern-day Keynesian economists suggest is a matter of great contention. The Economist noted as long ago as the 1960s that the ideas of Keynes the man were diverging from contemporary Keynesian economics. While Keynes emphasised austerity in the good times as much as stimulus in the bad, many Keynesians considered stimulus a “one-way road” in the 1960s and 1970s. As Keynes himself wrote in 1937: “The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.”
Even during his lifetime he was concerned that some people were accepting the conclusions of the "General Theory" too uncritically. In 1940, A.C. Pigou, one of the examiners of the Economics Tripos at Cambridge University that year, wrote to Keynes to complain that both staff and students were taking much of his work too literally:
The chief bad thing we found was that a very large number of people had been stuffed like sausages with bits of your stuff in such a way that (1) they were quite incapable of applying their own intelligence to it, and (2) they perpetually dragged it in regardless of its relevance to the question… the parrot-like treatment of your stuff is due to the lectures and supervision of the beautiful Mrs [Joan] R[obinson]—a magpie breeding innumerable parrots.
To the modern reader, the "General Theory" can appear very much a book of its time. It was written in a world facing very different problems from those of today. Keynes developed the theoretical ideas in his work to justify running a budget deficit of just 3% of GDP during recessions in a Britain where the state only accounted for around 25% of the economy. Today’s situation seems a world away in comparison. Peacetime deficits reached 13% of GDP in America in 2009, and in Denmark, Belgium and France, taxation approaches nearly 50% of GDP.
Even Keynes himself, by the end of the second world war, was considering writing a new book to correct and develop much of what he was unsatisfied with in the "General Theory". But due to his untimely death it was Joan Robinson who extended Keynsianism into the future, giving it a left-wing tinge by mixing it with the ideas of Karl Marx in her book "The Accumulation of Capital".
This has confused impressions of what Keynes's ideas were, but even with this overlay removed they are hard to pin down. A perusal of his work in the interwar years makes Keynes, on the surface, look like a very inconsistent thinker. He appears to have supported deflationary policies in the early 1920s and then inflationary ones in the 1930s. He spent most of his life as a free-trade campaigner, only to perform a volte-face in 1930 to support tariffs and then aggressively defend Britain’s use of them against America in the second world war. And he changed his mind many times about other issues too; for example, on the use of capital levies and controls.
But one theme does emerge unscathed throughout his work: a search for macroeconomic stability. According to Mr Skidelsky at Warwick University, much of Keynes’s work was motivated by a desire to return to the stability and growth of the pre-1914 period that had been shattered by the first world war. Although the workings of the Victorian and Edwardian gold standard did a good job of this, they had broken down by 1919.
Keynes’s work in the interwar period was in many ways a reaction to the chaos of the times. "A Tract on Monetary Reform" (1923) attacked policies which caused excessive inflation or deflation in an economy. "The Economic Consequences of Mr Churchill" (1925) critically reviewed the wisdom of Britain’s return to the gold standard at an arbitrary fixed rate of exchange. Once freed from the shackles of gold, stimulus policy became an available tool for stabilising GDP during recessions—as he explored in "A Treatise on Money" (1930) and the "General Theory" (1936). All these works share one underlying feature—the idea that the internal stability of an economy (of prices and unemployment) should be prioritised above abstract principles that were directed at maintaining external stability (of exchange rates or the free movement of capital, for instance) at all costs.
Keynes was more of an empiricist, at heart, than his critics have claimed. He did not consider himself tied down to any particular economic creed. For instance, he pointed out that the most effective and appropriate economic theory for a particular period changes, because the structure of the world economy mutates and evolves over time far more quickly than, say, the natural world and its systems:
Economics is a science of thinking in terms of models joined to the art of choosing models which are relevant to the contemporary world. It is compelled to be this, because, unlike the typical natural science, the material to which it is applied is, in too many respects, not homogeneous through time…Good economists are scarce because the gift for using "vigilant observation" to choose good models, although it does not require a highly specialised intellectual technique, appears to be a very rare one.
So, can Keynes’s seemingly contradictory views on economics can provide a message to policy-makers of the future? Perhaps they can contribute more to a general outlook on the dismal science rather the advocacy of any particular policy tool in its own right. As Cambridge University oral tradition claims he often used to say when retorting to criticism of his latest ideas: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
You can read The Economist's obituary of John Maynard Keynes, from 1946, here.
Suggested reading:
R. Harrod, (1951). "The Life of John Maynard Keynes". London: Macmillan.
D. E. Moggridge, (1995). "Maynard Keynes: An Economist’s Biography". London: Routledge.
R. Skidelsky, (2004). "John Maynard Keynes 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman". London: Penguin.
R. Skidelsky, (2010). "Keynes: A Very Short Introduction". Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Selected Keynes bibliography:
J. M. Keynes, (1919). "The Economic Consequences of the Peace". London: Macmillan.
J. M. Keynes, (1923). "A Tract on Monetary Reform". London: Macmillan.
J. M. Keynes, (1930). "A Treatise on Money". London: Macmillan.
J. M. Keynes, (1931). "Essays in Persuasion". London: Macmillan [includes “The Economic Consequences of Mr Churchill” (1925), “The Economic Possibilities of our grandchildren” (1930) and “Proposals for a Revenue Tariff” (1931)].
J. M. Keynes, (1936). "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money". London: Macmillan.
J. M. Keynes, (1940). "How to pay for the war: A radical plan for the Chancellor of the Exchequer". London: Macmillan.
作者: [英]J·M·凱恩斯《精英的聚會》譯者: 劉玉波 / 董波, 江蘇人民出版社, 1997-10,頁數: 527
內容簡介 · · · · · ·本書由文章、書信組成,通過描繪凱恩斯周圍人物的治學經歷,把百餘位傑出的經濟學家、哲學家、科學家、政壇人物串聯起來,從而勾畫出二戰前英國人物沉浮、大英帝國的衰落。作者簡介 · · · · · ·約翰·梅納德·凱恩斯(John Maynard Keynes, 1883年6月5日- 1946年4月21日),英國經濟學家。凱恩斯可謂經濟學界最具影響的人物之一。他的發表於1936年的主要作品《就業、利息和貨幣通論》引起了經濟學的革命。這部作品對人們對經濟學和政權在社會生活中作用的看法產生了深遠的影響。除《通論》外,凱恩斯另外兩部重要的經濟理論著作是《貨幣論》(A Tract on Monetary Reform 1923)和《貨幣論》(A Treatise on Money, 1930)。這兩部著作是其研究貨幣理論的代表作,但均未能脫出古典貨幣數量論的窠臼。
内容简介 · · · · · ·
本书由文章、书信组成,通过描绘凯恩斯周围人物的治学经历,把百余位杰出的经济学家、哲学家、科学家、政坛人物串联起来,从而勾画出二战前英国人物沉浮、大英帝国的衰落。
作者简介 · · · · · ·
约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯(John Maynard Keynes, 1883年6月5日 - 1946年4月21日),英国经济学家。凯恩斯可谓经济学界最具影响的人物之一。他的发表于1936年的主要作品《就业、利息和货币通论》引起了经济学的革命。这部作品对人们对经济学和政权在社会生活中作用的看法产生了深远的影响。
除《通论》外,凯恩斯另外两部重要的经济理论著作是《货币论》(A Tract on Monetary Reform 1923)和《货币论》(A Treatise on Money, 1930)。这两部著作是其研究货币理论的代表作,但均未能脱出古典货币数量论的窠臼。
Exploring the scientist’s interest in alchemy, theology and eschatology
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