Ja. Kunz!

Sing it, Kunz!

Keynes and Social Democracy Today

Leutnant Kunz, report forward.

What do you suggest, Kunz?

Leutnant Kunz, Herr Kapitän.

Fire, Kunz! Fire!

Argentina s Use and Abuse of Keynes

Keynes did not entirely ignore the social character of work.

Keynes versus the Classics Round Two

But John Maynard Keynes s relationship with social democracy is complex.

He probably didn t put it nearly strongly enough.

Ja, Kunz. Yours is the next watch on topside.

The neo Keynesian economist wants to boost demand generally.

Keynes minimized the obstacles to his goal.

Everyone would remain employed, and all would come a little closer to Keynes s ideal.

We are wiser and perhaps sadder than Keynes.

Specifically, Keynes denied that saving is simply deferred spending.

Keynes denied that real wages are set in the labor market.

It is not surprising that they are working longer than Keynes thought they would.

Eighty years on, the developed world has approached Keynes s goal.

That view appears to have returned to policymaking in Keynes s homeland.

If the debt ceiling absolutists are naïve, so, too, are simplistic Keynesians.

Keynes once wrote that he agreed with almost all of Hayek s ideas.

Keynes understood early on the fallacy of applying such mechanical rules.

After all, it is only aggregate demand that matters to the Keynesian faithful.

But what is our long run economic destiny? Keynes looked forward to a time, perhaps 2050, when everyone (in England, at least) would be able to have the lifestyle of a Keynes.

As Paul Krugman recently reminded us, John Maynard Keynes perhaps put it best

This enables us to work out how much Keynes thought was enough.

When I ask this question, I never get a coherent answer so let me retrace Keynes s steps.

In a well known passage, he wrote An act of saving means a decision not to have dinner today.

Keynes thought that the chief implicit assumption underlying the classical theory of the economy was that of perfect knowledge.

A boom not a slump is the right time for austerity at the Treasury said Keynes.

In short, Keynes aimed to achieve a key social democratic objective without changing the ownership of industry.

Keynesianism, which promises painless answers, was resurgent once again.

Of particular importance in Keynes' theories was his explanation of economic behavior as also being led by animal spirits .

At first glance, Kicillof seems to be correct this looks like textbook Keynesian reflation. But Keynes would not have approved of the macroeconomic policies pursued by Fernández and her predecessor and husband, the late Néstor Kirchner.

Unless and until we recognize this fully, we will remain at the mercy of Keynes s poorly understood delicate machine.

Yes, we were all Keynesians but all too briefly.

To paraphrase John Maynard Keynes, the economic price of establishing peace is large, but it is indeed a good investment.

John Maynard Keynes predicted accurately that all of these debts would end up in default.

NEW YORK It was not long ago that we could say, We are all Keynesians now.

In fact, increased spending, which the Keynesians saw simply as boosting aggregate demand, produced distortions.

This is not a problem with which Keynes was familiar, much less one that he sought to address.

In answering this question, Keynes reconstructed the orthodox theory and then proceeded to demolish it.