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7 - Conclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2009

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Summary

A main theme of this book is that the General Theory put into the language of economics beliefs that Keynes held in the 1920s. The beliefs concerned progress, the role of the state in achieving progress, the importance of investment for progress, and the harmful effect of uncertainty on investment and progress.

As early as 1924, Keynes gave a lecture at Oxford “The End of Laissez-Faire.” What I have called the main themes are there, not hidden as afterthoughts in a wide-ranging essay but as main ideas:

Many of the greatest economic evils of our time are the fruits of risk, uncertainty, and ignorance. It is because particular individuals … are able to take advantage of uncertainty and ignorance, and also because for the same reason big business is often a lottery, that great inequalities of wealth come about; and these same factors are also the cause of the unemployment of labour, or the disappointment of reasonable business expectations, and of the impairment of efficiency and production …

I believe that some coordinated act of intelligent judgment is required as to the scale on which it is desirable that the community as a whole should save, the scale on which these savings should go abroad in the form of foreign investments, and whether the present organization of the investment market distributes savings along the most rationally productive channels.

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Keynes's Monetary Theory
A Different Interpretation
, pp. 303 - 321
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1989

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  • Conclusion
  • Allan H. Meltzer
  • Book: Keynes's Monetary Theory
  • Online publication: 05 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511528415.008
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  • Conclusion
  • Allan H. Meltzer
  • Book: Keynes's Monetary Theory
  • Online publication: 05 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511528415.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Allan H. Meltzer
  • Book: Keynes's Monetary Theory
  • Online publication: 05 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511528415.008
Available formats
×