View source for John Maynard Keynes

{{Short description|British economist (1883–1946)}}
{{Redirect2|John Keynes|Keynes|his father|John Neville Keynes|his biography by Skidelsky|John Maynard Keynes (Skidelsky)|other uses|Keynes (disambiguation)}}
{{Use British English |date= August 2011}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox economist
| honorific_prefix   = [[The Right Honourable]]
| name               = The Lord Keynes
| honorific_suffix   = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CB|FBA}}
| image              = John Maynard Keynes (1929).jpg
| caption            = Keynes in 1929
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1883|6|5|df=yes}}
| birth_place        = [[Cambridge]], England
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1946|4|21|1883|6|5|df=yes}}
| death_place        = Tilton, East Sussex, England
| spouse             = {{marriage|[[Lydia Lopokova]]|1925}}
| education          = [[King's College, Cambridge]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])
| father             = [[John Neville Keynes]]
| mother             = [[Florence Ada Brown]]
| party              = [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]]
| school_tradition   = [[Keynesian economics]]
| institution        = [[King's College, Cambridge]]
| field              = {{hlist |[[Political economy]] |[[Probability]]}}
| influences         = {{flatlist|
* [[Jeremy Bentham|Bentham]]
* [[Edmund Burke|Burke]]
* [[Silvio Gesell]]<ref name=Gesell-NPR>{{cite web |last=Rosalsky |first=Greg |date=27 August 2019 |title=The 'Strange, Unduly Neglected Prophet' |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/08/27/754323652/the-strange-unduly-neglected-prophet |website=NPR |access-date=17 April 2025}}</ref><ref name=Gesell-Forbes>{{cite web |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/vipinbharathan/2020/08/16/money-that-rots-like-potatoes-money-that-rusts-like-iron-hot-money-and-cbdcs/?sh=4d04eee1251d |title=Money That Rots Like Potatoes, Money That Rusts Like Iron, Hot Money And CBDCs |last=Bharathan |first=Vipin |date=16 August 2020 |website=Forbes |access-date=17 April 2025 |quote=Gesell's solution to this was a proposal to impose a stamp tax, that cash becomes worthless unless it is renewed periodically through a stamp upon the notes. The stamp had to be paid for by giving a certain amount of that cash to the authorities. Essentially a negative interest rate that breaks the Zero Lower Bound (ZLB) on cash.}}</ref><ref name=Gesell-NYT>{{Cite news |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/business/economy/19view.html |title=It May Be Time for the Fed to Go Negative |work=The New York Times |first=N. Gregory |last=Mankiw |author-link=N. Gregory Mankiw |date=18 April 2009 |quote=John Maynard Keynes approvingly cited the idea of a carrying tax on money.}}</ref>
* [[Nicholas Johannsen|Johannsen]]
* [[J. N. Keynes|Keynes Sr]]
* [[Malthus]]
* [[Alfred Marshall|Marshall]]
* [[Isaac Newton|Newton]]
* [[Knut Wicksell|Wicksell]]
* [[Bertrand Russell|Russell]]<ref>{{cite book|title=The Return to Keynes|year=2010|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0674053540|page=146|editor1=Bradley W. Bateman|editor2=Toshiaki Hirai|editor3=Maria Cristina Marcuzzo|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8ggUJJqiDa4C&pg=PA146|access-date=21 April 2017|archive-date=22 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170422142606/https://books.google.com/books?id=8ggUJJqiDa4C&pg=PA146|url-status=live}}</ref>
* [[G. E. Moore]]<ref name="cht">{{cite book |last1=Parsons |first1=Wayne |title=The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought |year=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1139053600 |page=46}}</ref>
* [[Sraffa]]
}}
| contributions      = {{unbulleted list |[[Macroeconomics]] |[[Keynesian economics]] |[[Liquidity preference]] |[[Spending multiplier]] |[[AD–AS model]]|[[Demand-side economics]]}}
|module={{infobox officeholder
|embed = yes
|office = Member of the [[House of Lords]]
|status = [[Lords Temporal|Lord Temporal]]
|term_start = 7 July 1942
|term_end = 21 April 1946
|predecessor     = ''Peerage created''
|successor = ''Peerage extinct''
}}
| signature          = JM Keynes signature.svg
}}
{{Macroeconomics sidebar}}
'''John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes'''<ref>{{cite ODNB |last= Cairncross |first= Alec |title= Keynes, John Maynard, Baron Keynes (1883–1946) |id= 34310}}</ref> {{post-nominals|country=GBR|sep=,|CB|FBA}} ({{IPAc-en |k|eɪ|n|z}} {{respell |KAYNZ}}; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of [[macroeconomics]] and the [[economic policies]] of governments. Originally trained in mathematics, he built on and greatly refined earlier work on the causes of [[business cycle]]s.{{sfn |Yergin|Stanislaw|2002 |pp= 39–42}} One of the most influential economists of the 20th century,<ref name="JMK">{{cite magazine |first= John |last= Sloman |url= https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7682887.stm |title= How to kick-start a faltering economy the Keynes way |magazine= BBC News magazine |date= 22 October 2008 |access-date= 13 November 2008 |archive-date= 4 April 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090404181606/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7682887.stm |url-status= live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last= Cohn |first= Steven Mark |title= Reintroducing Macroeconomics: A Critical Approach |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bZ5sBgAAQBAJ&pg=PP1 |year= 2015 |publisher= Taylor & Francis |isbn= 978-1317461203 |page= 111 |access-date= 21 April 2017 |archive-date= 22 April 2017 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170422212842/https://books.google.com/books?id=bZ5sBgAAQBAJ&pg=PP1 |url-status= live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1= Davis |first1= William L. |first2= Bob |last2= Figgins |first3= David |last3= Hedengren |first4= Daniel B. |last4= Klein |title= Economic Professors' Favorite Economic Thinkers, Journals, and Blogs |journal= [[Econ Journal Watch]] |volume= 8 |issue= 2 |pages= 126–146 |date= May 2011 |url=https://econjwatch.org/file_download/487/DavisMay2011.pdf?mimetype=pdf |access-date= 21 April 2017 |archive-date= 17 April 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210417174721/https://econjwatch.org/file_download/487/DavisMay2011.pdf?mimetype=pdf |url-status= live }}</ref> he produced writings that are the basis for the [[schools of economic thought|school of thought]] known as [[Keynesian economics]], and its various offshoots.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Skidelsky |first1=Robert |title=Keynes: The Return of the Master |year=2010 |publisher=Public affairs |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-1586488970 }}</ref> His ideas, reformulated as [[New Keynesianism]], are fundamental to [[mainstream economics|mainstream macroeconomics]]. He is known as the "father of macroeconomics".<ref>{{cite news |last=Wolf |first=Martin |date=23 December 2008 |title= Keynes offers us the best way to think about the financial crisis |work=Financial Times |author-link=Martin Wolf }} (Columnist opinion)</ref>

Keynes was educated at [[King's College, Cambridge|King's College]] at the [[University of Cambridge]], where he graduated in 1904 with a [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] in mathematics. During the [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s, Keynes spearheaded [[Keynesian Revolution|a revolution in economic thinking]], challenging the ideas of [[neoclassical economics]] that held that [[free market]]s would, in the short to medium term, automatically provide full employment, as long as workers were flexible in their wage demands. He argued that [[aggregate demand]] (total spending in the economy) determined the overall level of economic activity, and that inadequate aggregate demand could lead to prolonged periods of high unemployment, and since wages and labour costs are [[Nominal rigidity|rigid downwards]] the economy will not automatically rebound to full employment.{{r|gen theory}} Keynes advocated the use of [[fiscal policy|fiscal]] and [[monetary policies]] to mitigate the adverse effects of economic [[recession]]s and [[depression (economics)|depressions]]. After the 1929 crisis, Keynes also turned away from a fundamental pillar of neoclassical economics: [[free trade]]. He criticized Ricardian [[comparative advantage]] theory (the foundation of free trade), considering the theory's initial assumptions unrealistic, and became definitively protectionist.<ref name="Maurin free">
{{Cite journal |last1=Maurin |first1=Max |year=2011 |title=J.M. Keynes, le libre-échange et le protectionnisme |trans-title=J.M. Keynes, Free Trade and Protectionism |journal=L'Actualité Économique |language=fr |volume=86 |pages=109–129 |doi=10.7202/045556ar |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="Maurin thesis">{{Cite thesis |url=http://www.sudoc.abes.fr/cbs/xslt/DB=2.1//SRCH?IKT=12&TRM=170778401 |title=Les fondements non neoclassiques du protectionnisme |year=2013 |publisher=Université Bordeaux-IV |last1=Maurin |first1=Max |language=fr}}</ref><ref name="National Self-Sufficiency">{{cite journal|url=http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/interwar/keynes.htm|first=John Maynard |last=Keynes|title=National Self-Sufficiency|journal=The Yale Review |volume= 22 |number= 4 |date=June 1933 |pages=755–769|access-date=14 May 2021|archive-date=15 May 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110515044928/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/interwar/keynes.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> He detailed these ideas in his magnum opus, ''[[The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money]]'', published in early 1936. By the late 1930s, leading Western economies had begun adopting Keynes's policy recommendations. Almost all [[capitalist]] governments had done so by the end of the two decades following Keynes's death in 1946. As a leader of the British delegation, Keynes participated in the design of the international economic institutions established after the end of [[World War II]] but was overruled by the American delegation on several aspects.

His influence began to wane in the 1970s, partly as a result of the [[stagflation]] that plagued the [[Economy of the United Kingdom|British]] and [[Economy of the United States|American economies]] during that decade, and partly because of criticism of Keynesian policies by [[Milton Friedman]] and other [[monetarist]]s,<ref>{{cite book|last=Krugman|first=Paul |authorlink=Paul Krugman|title=Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in the Age of Diminished Expectations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GcmvijkDrEcC&pg=PA43|year=1995|publisher=W.W. Norton|isbn=978-0393312928|page=43|quote=In 1968 in one of the decisive intellectual achievements of postwar economics, Friedman not only showed why the apparent tradeoff embodied in the idea of the Phillips curve was wrong; he also predicted the emergence of combined inflation and high unemployment&nbsp;... dubbed 'stagflation.}}</ref> who disputed the ability of government to favourably regulate the business cycle with [[fiscal policy]].<ref>{{cite news |title=To Set the Economy Right |date=27 August 1979 |access-date=13 November 2008 |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920558,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090404035920/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920558,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=4 April 2009 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref> The [[2008 financial crisis]] sparked the [[2008–2009 Keynesian resurgence]]. Keynesian economics provided the theoretical underpinning for economic policies undertaken in response to the [[2008 financial crisis]] by President [[Barack Obama]] of the United States, Prime Minister [[Gordon Brown]] of the United Kingdom, and other heads of governments.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.ft.com/content/8a3d8122-d5da-11dd-a9cc-000077b07658|title=The undeniable shift to Keynes|author1=Chris Giles|author2=Ralph Atkins|author3=Krishna Guha|work=Financial Times|access-date=23 January 2009|archive-date=20 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201020111353/https://www.ft.com/content/8a3d8122-d5da-11dd-a9cc-000077b07658|url-status=live}}</ref>

When ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine included Keynes among its [[Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century|Most Important People of the Century]] in 1999, it reported that "his radical idea that governments should spend money they don't have may have saved capitalism".<ref>{{cite news |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990614,00.html |title=The Time 100: John Maynard Keynes |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |first=Robert |last=Reich |date=29 March 1999 |access-date=18 June 2009 |authorlink=Robert Reich |archive-date=24 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210524184117/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990614,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref> ''[[The Economist]]'' has described Keynes as "Britain's most famous 20th-century economist".<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21577382-chancellor-likely-ignore-imfs-advice-toothless-truth-tellers |title= The IMF in Britain: Toothless truth tellers |newspaper= [[The Economist]] |date= 11 May 2013 |access-date= 2 October 2013 |archive-date= 18 April 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210418160633/https://www.economist.com/britain/2013/05/11/toothless-truth-tellers |url-status= live }}</ref> In addition to being an economist, Keynes was also a [[Civil Service (United Kingdom)|civil servant]], a director of the [[Bank of England]], and a part of the [[Bloomsbury Group]] of intellectuals.<ref name="The Bloomsbury Group">{{cite web |url= http://therem.net/bloom-maynard.htm |title= Maynard Keynes |publisher= The Bloomsbury Group |date= 22 August 2007 |access-date= 26 May 2012 |archive-date= 30 April 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210430191456/https://therem.net/bloom-maynard.htm |url-status= live }}</ref>

==Early life and education==
[[Image:KingsCollegeChapelWest.jpg|thumb|[[King's College, Cambridge]]. Keynes's grandmother wrote to him saying that, since he was born in Cambridge, people will expect him to be clever.]]
John Maynard Keynes was born in [[Cambridge]], England, on 5 June 1883, to an upper-middle-class family. His father, [[John Neville Keynes]], was an economist and a lecturer in [[moral science]]s at the University of Cambridge and his mother, [[Florence Ada Keynes]], a local social reformer who went on to become the town's first female mayor. Keynes was the firstborn and was followed by two more children{{snd}}[[Margaret Hill (social reformer)|Margaret Neville Keynes]] in 1885 and [[Geoffrey Keynes]] in 1887. Geoffrey became a surgeon and Margaret married the Nobel Prize-winning physiologist [[Archibald Hill]].

According to the reminiscences of his brother Geoffrey, their parents were loving and attentive. They attended a Congregational Church<ref>{{cite book |last1=Keynes |first1=Geoffrey |editor1=Milo Keynes |title=Essays on John Maynard Keynes |year=1975 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=London |isbn=978-0521205344 |pages=26–35 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/essaysonjohnmayn0000unse_n9x6/page/26/mode/2up |chapter=The Early Years|chapter-url-access=registration}}</ref>{{r|2003 Skidel|p=14}} and remained in the same house throughout their lives, where the children were always welcome to return. Keynes received considerable support from his father, including expert coaching to help him pass his scholarship exams and financial help both as a young man and when his assets were nearly wiped out at the onset of [[Great Depression]] in 1929. Keynes's mother made her children's interests her own, and according to Skidelsky, "because she could grow up with her children, they never outgrew home".{{r|2003 Skidel|p=14}}

In January 1889, at the age of five and a half, Keynes started at the kindergarten of the [[Perse School for Girls]] for five mornings a week. He quickly showed a talent for arithmetic, but his health was poor leading to several long absences. He was tutored at home by a governess, Beatrice Mackintosh, and his mother. In January 1892, at eight and a half, he started as a day pupil at [[St Faith's School|St Faith's]] preparatory school. By 1894, Keynes was top of his class and excelling at mathematics. In 1896, St Faith's headmaster, Ralph Goodchild, wrote that Keynes was "head and shoulders above all the other boys in the school" and was confident that Keynes could get a scholarship to Eton.<ref>Sources:
* {{cite book|last=Hession|first=Charles Henry|title=John Maynard Keynes: A Personal Biography of the Man Who Revolutionized Capitalism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l8JdAAAAIAAJ|year=1984|pages=12–|isbn=0025513109|publisher=MacMillan Ltd.|access-date=27 June 2015|archive-date=1 January 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101230121/https://books.google.com/books?id=l8JdAAAAIAAJ|url-status=live}}
* {{cite book|last=Dostaler|first=Gilles|title=Keynes and His Battles|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fGIamxBxQgsC&pg=PA262|year=2007|publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing|isbn=978-1781008379|pages=262–|access-date=27 June 2015|archive-date=15 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150315070949/http://books.google.com/books?id=fGIamxBxQgsC&pg=PA262|url-status=live}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Keynes.html|title=John Maynard Keynes|first1=J.J.|last1=O'Connor|first2=E.F.|last2=Robertson|date=October 2003|publisher=MacTutor History of Mathematics|place=School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland|access-date=25 January 2014|archive-date=25 October 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191025235917/http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Keynes.html|url-status=live}}
* {{cite web|url=https://www.maynardkeynes.org/keynes-career-timeline.html#begin|website=John Maynard Keynes|title=Timeline|at=§"Pre-Career Years – 1883 to 1905"}}
* {{cite journal|last=Gümüş|first=Erdal|title=J.M. Keynes; Liberalism and Keynes; Keynes's Personal Life; Keynes's School Years|journal=Dumlupinar University Journal of Social Sciences|volume=5|issue=9|year=2003|pages=81–100|place=Eskisehir Osmangazi University|id=MPRA Paper No. 42373|url=http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/id/eprint/42373|access-date=25 January 2014|archive-date=14 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220214204220/https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/42373/|url-status=live}} (cites Skidelsky)
* {{citation|title=130 years of Perse Girls – Stephen Perse Foundation|url=http://www.stephenperse.com/resource.aspx?id=1666|year=2011|page=8|access-date=25 January 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150822072052/http://www.stephenperse.com/resource.aspx?id=1666|archive-date=22 August 2015}} includes a photograph that is said to show Keynes as a child at the Perse School Kindergarten</ref>

In 1897, Keynes won a King's Scholarship to [[Eton College]], where he displayed talent in a wide range of subjects, particularly mathematics, [[classics]] and history: in 1901, he was awarded the [[George Tomline (politician)#Tomline Prize|Tomline Prize]] for mathematics. At Eton, Keynes experienced the first "love of his life" in Dan Macmillan, older brother of the future Prime Minister [[Harold Macmillan]].{{r|supermac|p=27}} Despite his middle-class background, Keynes mixed easily with upper-class pupils.

In 1902, Keynes left Eton for [[King's College, Cambridge]], after receiving a scholarship for this also, to read mathematics. [[Alfred Marshall]] begged Keynes to become an economist,<ref>
{{Cite book
|last=McGee
|first=Matt
|title=Economics – In terms of The Good, The Bad and The Economist
|year=2005
|page=354
|isbn=1876659106
|publisher=IBID Press
|location=S.l.
|oclc= 163584293 }}
</ref> although Keynes's own inclinations drew him towards philosophy, especially the ethical system of [[G. E. Moore]]. Keynes was elected to the [[University Pitt Club]]{{r|Moggridge|pp=[https://archive.org/details/maynardkeyneseco0047mogg/page/52 52–81]}} and was an active member of the semi-secretive [[Cambridge Apostles]] society, a debating club largely reserved for the brightest students. Like many members, Keynes retained a bond to the club after graduating and continued to attend occasional meetings throughout his life. While at the University of Cambridge, Keynes was president of the [[Cambridge Union Society]] and [[Cambridge University Liberal Club]]. He was said to be an atheist.<ref name="robinson">{{cite book |last1=Robinson |first1=Austin|editor1=Milo Keynes |title=Essays on John Maynard Keynes |date=1975 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=London |isbn=978-0521205344 |pages=26–35 |url=https://archive.org/details/essaysonjohnmayn0000unse_n9x6/mode/1up |chapter=A Personal View |url-access=registration}} See p.[https://archive.org/details/essaysonjohnmayn0000unse_n9x6/page/11/mode/1up 11]</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sgpb7PBClmUC&q=John+Maynard+Keynes+atheist&pg=PT24|title=Humanism: A Beginner's Guide|last=Cave|first=Peter|year= 2009|publisher=Oneworld Publications|isbn=978-1780740294|language=en|access-date=5 October 2020|archive-date=17 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417191419/https://books.google.com/books?id=sgpb7PBClmUC&q=John+Maynard+Keynes+atheist&pg=PT24|url-status=live}}</ref>

In May 1904, he received a first-class [[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] in mathematics. Aside from a few months spent on holidays with family and friends, Keynes continued to involve himself with the university over the next two years. He took part in debates, further studied philosophy and attended economics lectures informally as a graduate student for one term, which constituted his only formal education in the subject. He took civil service exams in 1906.

The economist [[Harry Gordon Johnson|Harry Johnson]] wrote that the optimism imparted by Keynes's early life is a key to understanding his later thinking.<ref>
{{cite web
 |url         = http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/item_single.php?item_id=31&item=biography
 |title       = Biography of Baron John Maynard Keynes
 |publisher   = LiberalHistory.org
 |author      = David Gowland
 |access-date  = 29 May 2009
|url-status     = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20110616040146/http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/item_single.php?item_id=31&item=biography
 |archive-date = 16 June 2011
}}
</ref>
Keynes was always confident he could find a solution to whatever problem he turned his attention to and retained a lasting faith in the ability of government officials to do good.<ref name="Cunningham">{{cite book | last1 = Aschheim | first1 = J. | last2 = Tavlas | first2 = G.S. | last3 = Heinsohn | first3 = G. | last4 = Steiger | first4 = O. | editor-last = Wood | editor-first = John Cunningham | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=EYbno7vSEbQC&pg=PA103 | title = John Maynard Keynes: Critical Assessments |pages= 101–120, 135 | series = Second | chapter = The Monetary Thought-Ideology Nexus: Simons verses Keynes; Marx and Keynes – Private Property and Money | isbn = 978-0415114158 | year = 1994 | access-date = 25 August 2020 | archive-date = 17 April 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210417191421/https://books.google.com/books?id=EYbno7vSEbQC&pg=PA103 | url-status = live }}</ref>
Keynes's optimism was also cultural, in two senses: he was of the last generation raised by [[British Empire|an empire]] still at the height of its power and was also of the last generation who felt entitled to govern by culture, rather than by expertise. According to [[Robert Skidelsky|Skidelsky]], the sense of cultural unity current in Britain from the 19th century to the end of [[World War I]] provided a framework with which the well-educated could set various spheres of knowledge in relation to each other and life, enabling them to confidently draw from different fields when addressing practical problems.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=146–147}}

==Career==
In October 1906 Keynes began his [[Civil Service (United Kingdom)|Civil Service]] career as a clerk in the [[India Office]].<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=11879|date=6 November 1906 |page=1124}}</ref> He enjoyed his work at first, but by 1908 had become bored and resigned his position to return to Cambridge and work on [[probability theory]], through a lectureship in economics at first funded personally by economists [[Alfred Marshall]] and [[Arthur Cecil Pigou|Arthur Pigou]]. He became a fellow of [[King's College, Cambridge|King's College]] in 1909.{{sfn|Skidelsky|1983|p=205}}

By 1909 Keynes had also published his first professional economics article in ''[[The Economic Journal]]'', about the effect of a recent global economic downturn on India.{{r|Minksky}} He founded the [[Political Economy Club (1909)|Political Economy Club]], a weekly discussion group. Keynes's earnings rose further as he began to take on pupils for private tuition.

In 1911 Keynes was made the editor of ''The Economic Journal''. By 1913 he had published his first book, ''Indian Currency and Finance''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Keynes |first=John Maynard |url=https://archive.org/stream/indiancurrencyan014875mbp#page/n3/mode/2up |title=Indian Currency and Finance |publisher=Macmillan & Co. |year=1913 |place=London}} p.9</ref> In that book, Keynes analysed in great detail the monetary arrangements of India, from the late 19<sup>th</sup> century onwards. The Indian Rupee notes were convertible into silver coin which in turn had growing convertibility into gold coin, pound sterling, at a ratio of 15:1. Keynes recommended policies to speed up the conversion of Rupee into gold – effectively recommending a gold exchange standard.<ref name=":0" /> 

He was then appointed to the [[Royal Commission]] on Indian Currency and Finance<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=28711|page=2809|date=18 April 1913}}</ref>{{snd}}the same topic as his book{{snd}}where Keynes showed considerable talent at applying economic theory to practical problems. His written work was published under the name "J M Keynes", though to his family and friends he was known as Maynard. (His father, John Neville Keynes, was also always known by his middle name).<ref name="clarke" />

===First World War===

The British Government called on Keynes's expertise during the [[First World War]]. While he did not formally rejoin the civil service in 1914, Keynes travelled to London at the government's request a few days before hostilities started. Bankers had been pushing for the suspension of [[Hard money (policy)|specie]] payments{{snd}}the gold equivalent of [[banknotes]]{{snd}}but with Keynes's help, the [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] (then [[Lloyd George]]) was persuaded that this would be a bad idea, as it would hurt the future reputation of the city if payments were suspended before it was necessary.

In January 1915 Keynes took up an official government position at the [[HM Treasury|Treasury]]. Among his responsibilities were the design of terms of credit between Britain and its continental allies during the war and the acquisition of scarce currencies. According to economist [[Robert Lekachman]], Keynes's "nerve and mastery became legendary" because of his performance of these duties, as in the case where he managed to assemble a supply of [[Spanish peseta]]s.

The secretary of the Treasury was delighted to hear Keynes had amassed enough to provide a temporary solution for the British Government. But Keynes did not hand the pesetas over, choosing instead to sell them all to break the market: his boldness paid off, as pesetas then became much less scarce and expensive.<ref>
{{cite book
| last= Spiegel
| first= Henry William
| title= The Growth of Economic Thought
| year= 1991
| page= 602
| isbn= 0822309734
| publisher=Duke University Press
| location= Durham, UK
}}
</ref>

On the introduction of [[military conscription]] in 1916, he applied for exemption as a [[conscientious objector]], which was effectively granted conditional upon continuing his government work.

In the 1917 King's [[Birthday Honours]], Keynes was appointed Companion of the [[Order of the Bath]] for his wartime work,<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=30111 |supp=y|page=5456|date=1 June 1917}}</ref> and his success led to the appointment that had a huge effect on Keynes's life and career; Keynes was appointed financial representative for the Treasury to the 1919 [[Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920)|Versailles peace conference]]. He was also appointed Officer of the Belgian [[Order of Leopold (Belgium)|Order of Leopold]].<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=31928 |supp=y|page=6175|date=1 June 1920}}</ref>

===Versailles peace conference===
{{Main|Heavenly Twins (Sumner and Cunliffe)|Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920)|Treaty of Versailles}}

[[Image:David Lloyd George 1902.jpg|thumb|upright|Keynes's colleague, [[David Lloyd George]]. Keynes was initially wary of the "Welsh Wizard," preferring his rival [[Asquith]], but was impressed with Lloyd George at Versailles; this did not deter Keynes from painting a scathing picture of the then-prime minister in ''[[The Economic Consequences of the Peace]]''.]]

Keynes's experience at [[Treaty of Versailles|Versailles]] was influential in shaping his future outlook, yet it was not a successful one. Keynes's main interest had been in trying to prevent [[World War I reparations|Germany's compensation payments]] being set so high it would traumatise innocent German people, damage the nation's ability to pay and sharply limit its ability to buy exports from other countries{{snd}}thus hurting not just Germany's economy but that of the wider world.

Unfortunately for Keynes, conservative powers in the coalition that emerged from the [[1918 United Kingdom general election|1918 coupon election]] were able to ensure that both Keynes himself and the Treasury were largely excluded from formal high-level talks concerning reparations. Their place was taken by the [[Heavenly Twins (Sumner and Cunliffe)|Heavenly Twins]]{{snd}}the judge [[John Hamilton, 1st Viscount Sumner|Lord Sumner]] and the banker [[Walter Cunliffe, 1st Baron Cunliffe|Lord Cunliffe]], whose nickname derived from the "astronomically" high war compensation they wanted to demand from Germany. Keynes was forced to try to exert influence mostly from behind the scenes.

The three principal players at the Paris conferences were Britain's Lloyd George, France's [[Georges Clemenceau]] and America's President [[Woodrow Wilson]].<ref name="origins">
{{cite book
|first = Frank
|last= McDonough
|pages = 43–46
|title = The Origins of the First and Second World Wars
|year=1997
|publisher=Cambridge University Press
|isbn=1405106646}}
</ref>
It was only Lloyd George to whom Keynes had much direct access; until the 1918 election he had some sympathy with Keynes's view but while campaigning had found his speeches were well received by the public only if he promised to harshly punish Germany, and had therefore committed his delegation to extracting high payments.

Lloyd George did, however, win some loyalty from Keynes with his actions at the Paris conference by intervening against the French to ensure the dispatch of much-needed food supplies to German civilians. Clemenceau also pushed for substantial reparations, though not as high as those proposed by the British, while on security grounds, France argued for an even more severe settlement than Britain.

Wilson initially favoured relatively lenient treatment of Germany{{snd}}he feared too harsh conditions could foment the rise of extremism and wanted Germany to be left sufficient capital to pay for imports. To Keynes's dismay, Lloyd George and Clemenceau were able to pressure Wilson to agree to include pensions in the reparations bill.

Towards the end of the conference, Keynes came up with a plan that he argued would not only help Germany and other impoverished central European powers but also be good for the world economy as a whole. It involved the radical writing down of war debts, which would have had the possible effect of increasing international trade all round, but at the same time thrown over two-thirds of the cost of European reconstruction on the United States.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=225–232}}{{efn|In ''Essays in Persuasion'', Keynes estimates that cancellation of all inter-ally debts after the First World War would have resulted in a net cost to the US of £2.0 billion and of £0.9 billion to the UK (figures not adjusted for subsequent cumulative inflation).{{r|persuasion|p=[https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.30390/page/31/mode/2up 32]}} See §3 – "Proposals for the Reconstruction of Europe (1919)": §§(ii) "The Settlement of Inter-Ally Indebtedness",{{r|persuasion|pp=29–39}} within chapter "The Treaty of Peace".}}

Lloyd George agreed it might be acceptable to the British electorate. However, America was against the plan; the US was then the largest creditor, and by this time Wilson had started to believe in the merits of a harsh peace and thought that his country had already made excessive sacrifices. Hence despite his best efforts, the result of the conference was a treaty which disgusted Keynes both on moral and economic grounds and led to his resignation from the Treasury.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=231–235}}

In June 1919 he turned down an offer to become chairman of the [[British Bank of Northern Commerce]], a job that promised a salary of £2,000 in return for a morning per week of work.{{r|2003 Skidel|p=234}}

Keynes's analysis on the predicted damaging effects of the treaty appeared in the highly influential book, ''[[The Economic Consequences of the Peace]]'', published in 1919.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.policonomics.com/keynes/ |title=John Maynard Keynes |date=29 March 2012 |publisher=Policonomics |access-date=26 May 2012 |archive-date=15 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210515225045/https://policonomics.com/keynes/ |url-status=live }}</ref> This work has been described as Keynes's best book, where he was able to bring all his gifts to bear{{snd}}his passion as well as his skill as an economist. In addition to economic analysis, the book contained appeals to the reader's sense of [[compassion]]:{{r|ecp|p=209}}

{{blockquote|I cannot leave this subject as though its just treatment wholly depended either on our pledges or on economic facts. The policy of reducing Germany to servitude for a generation, of degrading the lives of millions of human beings, and of depriving a whole nation of happiness should be abhorrent and detestable, – abhorrent and detestable, even if it was possible, even if it enriched ourselves, even if it did not sow the decay of the whole civilized life of Europe.|author=Keynes
|title="Reparation" p. [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.14117/page/n217/mode/1up 209]
|source=''The Economic Consequences of the Peace'' (1919)}}

Also present was striking imagery such as "year by year Germany must be kept impoverished and her children starved and crippled" along with bold predictions which were later justified by events:{{r|ecp|p=251}}

{{blockquote|text=If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for very long that final war between the forces of Reaction and the despairing convulsions of Revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war will fade into nothing. |author=Keynes |title="Remedies" p. [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.14117/page/n259/mode/1up 251]
|source=''The Economic Consequences of the Peace'' (1919)}}

Keynes's followers assert that his predictions of disaster were borne out when the German economy suffered the [[Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic|hyperinflation of 1923]], and again by the collapse of the [[Weimar Republic]] and the outbreak of the Second World War. However, historian [[Ruth Henig]] claims that "most historians of the Paris peace conference now take the view that, in economic terms, the treaty was not unduly harsh on Germany and that, while obligations and damages were inevitably much stressed in the debates at Paris to satisfy electors reading the daily newspapers, the intention was quietly to give Germany substantial help towards paying her bills, and to meet many of the German objections by amendments to the way the reparations schedule was in practice carried out".<ref>{{cite book|last=Henig|first=Ruth|title=Versailles and After, 1919–1933|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lqInX6qQPyUC&pg=PA65|edition=second|year=1995|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1134798735|page=65|access-date=10 May 2017|archive-date=15 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615023209/https://books.google.com/books?id=lqInX6qQPyUC&pg=PA65|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="marks">{{cite journal |first=Sally |last=Marks |title=Mistakes and Myths: The Allies, Germany, and the Versailles Treaty, 1918–1921 |journal=[[The Journal of Modern History]] |date=September 2013 |volume=85 |issue=3 |pages=632–659 |jstor=10.1086/670825 |doi=10.1086/670825 |s2cid=154166326 |quote=For nearly forty years, historians of twentieth-century diplomacy have argued that the Versailles treaty was more reasonable than its reputation suggests and that it did not of itself cause the Depression, the rise of Hitler, or World War{{nbsp}}II|quote-page=632}}</ref>{{efn|Marks also claims that the book is a "brilliant but warped polemic",{{r|marks|p=636}} that is "long-discredited by scholars", and which Keynes regretted writing.{{r|marks|p=656}} }}

Only a small fraction of reparations was ever paid. In fact, historian [[Stephen A. Schuker]] demonstrates in ''American 'Reparations' to Germany, 1919–33'', that the capital inflow from American loans substantially exceeded German out payments so that, on a net basis, Germany received support equal to four times the amount of the post-Second World War [[Marshall Plan]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schuker |first=Stephen A. |title=American 'Reparations' to Germany, 1919–33: Implications for the Third-World Debt Crisis |year= 1988 |publisher=International Finance Section, Department of Economics, Princeton University |isbn=0881652334 |series=Princeton Studies in International Finance |page=119}}</ref>

Schuker also shows that, in the years after Versailles, Keynes became an informal reparations adviser to the German government, wrote one of the major German reparation notes, and supported hyperinflation on political grounds. Nevertheless, ''The Economic Consequences of the Peace'' gained Keynes international fame, even though it also caused him to be regarded as anti-establishment{{snd}}it was not until after the outbreak of the Second World War that Keynes was offered a directorship of a major British Bank, or an acceptable offer to return to government with a formal job. However, Keynes was still able to influence government policy-making through his network of contacts, his published works and by serving on government committees; this included attending high-level policy meetings as a consultant.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=593–598}}

===In the 1920s===

Keynes had completed his ''[[A Treatise on Probability]]'' before the war but published it in 1921.{{r|2003 Skidel|p=283}} The work was a notable contribution to the philosophical and mathematical underpinnings of [[probability theory]], championing the important view that ''probabilities'' were no more or less than [[truth value]]s intermediate between simple truth and falsity. Keynes developed the first upper-lower probabilistic [[interval (mathematics)|interval]] approach to probability in chapters 15 and 17 of this book, as well as having developed the first decision weight approach with his conventional coefficient of risk and weight, ''c'', in chapter 26. In addition to his academic work, the 1920s saw Keynes active as a journalist selling his work internationally and working in London as a financial consultant. In 1924 Keynes wrote an obituary for his former tutor [[Alfred Marshall]] which [[Joseph Schumpeter]] called "the most brilliant life of a man of science I have ever read".<ref>
{{cite book
|last=Schumpeter
|first=Joseph
|title= Ten Great Economists
|year=2003
|page= 271
|isbn=1932512098
|publisher=Simon Publications
}}
</ref> [[Mary Paley Marshall]] was "entranced" by the memorial, while [[Lytton Strachey]] rated it as one of Keynes's "best works".{{r|2003 Skidel|p=342}}

In 1922 Keynes continued to advocate reduction of German reparations with ''A Revision of the Treaty''.{{r|2003 Skidel|p=245}} He attacked the post-World War I deflation policies with ''[[A Tract on Monetary Reform]]'' in 1923{{r|2003 Skidel|p=329}}{{snd}}a trenchant argument that countries should target stability of domestic prices, avoiding deflation even at the cost of allowing their currency to depreciate. Britain suffered from high unemployment through most of the 1920s, leading Keynes to recommend the depreciation of [[Pound sterling|sterling]] to boost jobs by making British exports more affordable. From 1924 he was also advocating a fiscal response, where the government could create jobs by spending on public works.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=343–344}} During the 1920s Keynes's pro-stimulus views had only limited effect on policymakers and mainstream academic opinion{{snd}}according to [[Hyman Minsky]] one reason was that at this time his theoretical justification was "muddled".<ref name="Minksky"/> The ''Tract'' had also called for an end to the gold standard. Keynes advised it was no longer a net benefit for countries such as Britain to participate in the [[gold standard]], as it ran counter to the need for domestic policy autonomy. It could force countries to pursue deflationary policies at exactly the time when expansionary measures were called for to address rising unemployment. The Treasury and Bank of England were still in favour of the gold standard and in 1925 they were able to convince the then Chancellor [[Winston Churchill]] to re-establish it, which had a depressing effect on British industry. Keynes responded by writing ''The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill'' and continued to argue against the gold standard until Britain finally abandoned it in 1931.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=352–355}}

===During the Great Depression===
[[Image:Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Great Depression]] and its periods of worldwide economic hardship formed the backdrop against which the [[Keynesian Revolution]] took place. This image is ''[[Migrant Mother]]'', taken by photographer [[Dorothea Lange]] in March 1936.]]
{{wikiquote|The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money}}

Keynes had begun a theoretical work to examine the relationship between unemployment, money and prices back in the 1920s.<ref name="50 greats"/> The work, ''[[A Treatise on Money|Treatise on Money]]'', was published in 1930 in two volumes. A central idea of the work was that if the amount of money being saved exceeds the amount being invested{{snd}}which can happen if interest rates are too high{{snd}}then unemployment will rise. This is in part a result of people not wanting to spend too high a proportion of what employers pay out, making it difficult, in aggregate, for employers to make a profit. Another key theme of the book is the unreliability of financial [[index (economics)|indices]] for representing an accurate{{snd}}or indeed meaningful{{snd}}indication of general shifts in purchasing power of currencies over time. In particular, he criticised the justification of Britain's return to the [[gold standard]] in 1925 at pre-war valuation by reference to the [[wholesale price index]]. He argued that the index understated the effects of changes in the costs of services and labour.

Keynes was deeply critical of the British government's austerity measures during the [[Great Depression]]. He believed that budget deficits during [[recession]]s were a good thing and a natural product of an economic slump. He wrote, "For Government borrowing of one kind or another is nature's remedy, so to speak, for preventing business losses from being, in so severe a slump as the present one, so great as to bring production altogether to a standstill."<ref name="Cassidy2011">{{cite news|last=Cassidy|first=John|authorlink=John Cassidy (journalist)|title=The Demand Doctor|newspaper=The New Yorker|date=10 October 2011|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/10/the-demand-doctor|access-date=16 November 2018|archive-date=17 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181117025238/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/10/the-demand-doctor|url-status=live}}</ref>

At the height of the Great Depression, in 1933, Keynes published ''The Means to Prosperity'', which contained specific policy recommendations for tackling unemployment in a global recession, chiefly counter-cyclical public spending. ''The Means to Prosperity'' contains one of the first mentions of the [[Multiplier (economics)|multiplier effect]]. While it was addressed chiefly to the British Government, it also contained advice for other nations affected by the global recession. A copy was sent to the newly elected President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] and other world leaders. The work was taken seriously by both the American and British governments, and according to [[Robert Skidelsky]], helped pave the way for the later acceptance of Keynesian ideas, though it had little immediate practical influence. In the 1933 [[London Economic Conference]] opinions remained too diverse for a unified course of action to be agreed upon.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=490–500}}
{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage= | video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?169138-1/john-maynard-keynes-fighting-freedom ''Booknotes'' interview with Robert Skidelsky on ''John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Freedom, 1937–1946'', 28 April 2002], [[C-SPAN]]}}
Keynesian-like policies were adopted by Sweden and Germany, but Sweden was seen as too small to command much attention, and Keynes was deliberately silent about the [[Economy of Nazi Germany#Pre-war: 1933–1939|successful efforts of Germany]] as he was dismayed by its imperialist ambitions and its treatment of Jews.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=500–504}} Apart from Great Britain, Keynes's attention was primarily focused on the United States. In 1931, he received considerable support for his views on counter-cyclical public spending in Chicago, then America's foremost center for economic views alternative to the mainstream.<ref name="Minksky"/>{{r|2003 Skidel|p=507}} However, orthodox economic opinion remained generally hostile regarding fiscal intervention to mitigate the [[Economic depression|depression]], until just before the [[World War II|outbreak of war]].<ref name="Minksky"/> In late 1933 Keynes was persuaded by [[Felix Frankfurter]] to address President Roosevelt directly, which he did by letters and face-to-face in 1934, after which the two men spoke highly of each other.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=506–509}} However, according to Skidelsky, the consensus is that Keynes's efforts began to have a more than marginal influence on US economic policy only after 1939.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=}}

Keynes's ''[[magnum opus]]'', ''[[The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money]]'' was published in 1936.{{r|gen theory}}It was researched and indexed by one of Keynes's favourite students, and later economist, [[David Bensusan-Butt]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Keith |last=Tribe |title=Economic Careers: Economics and Economists in Britain, 1930–1970 |location=London |publisher=Routledge |year=1997 |page=61 |isbn=0415147085 }}</ref> The work served as a theoretical justification for the [[Economic interventionism|interventionist policies]] Keynes favoured for tackling a recession. Although Keynes stated in his preface that his General Theory was only secondarily concerned with the "applications of this theory to practice", the circumstances of its publication were such that his suggestions shaped the course of the 1930s.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sangkuhl |first1=Elfriede |title=How the Macroeconomic Theories of Keynes influenced the Development of Government Economic Finance Policy after the Great Depression of the 1930's: Using Australia as the Εxample |journal=Athens Journal of Law |date=January 2015 |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=34 |doi=10.30958/ajl.1.1.3 |doi-access=free }}</ref> In addition, Keynes introduced the world to a new interpretation of taxation: since the legal tender is now defined by the state, inflation becomes "taxation by currency depreciation". This hidden tax meant a) that the standard of value should be governed by deliberate decision; and (b) that it was possible to maintain a middle course between deflation and inflation.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Clarida |first1=Richard |title=The Science of Monetary Policy: a New Keynesian Perspective |journal=Journal of Economic Literature |year=1999 |volume=37 |issue=4 |pages=1661–1707 |doi=10.1257/jel.37.4.1661 |hdl=10230/360 |s2cid=55045787 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> This novel interpretation was inspired by the desperate search for control over the economy which permeated the academic world after the Depression. The ''General Theory'' challenged the earlier [[Neoclassical economics|neoclassical economic]] paradigm, which had held that provided it was unfettered by government interference, the market would naturally establish [[full employment]] equilibrium. In doing so Keynes was partly setting himself against his former teachers Marshall and Pigou. Keynes believed the classical theory was a "special case" that applied only to the particular conditions present in the 19th century, his theory being the general one. Classical economists had believed in [[Say's law]], which, simply put, states that "[[supply creates its demand]]", and that in a free-market workers would always be willing to lower their wages to a level where employers could profitably offer them jobs.<ref name="kishtainy">{{Cite book |last=Kishtainy |first=Niall |title=A little history of economics |date=2017 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0300206364 |oclc=980872123}}</ref>

An innovation from Keynes was the concept of [[Nominal rigidity|price stickiness]]{{snd}}the recognition that in reality workers often refuse to lower their wage demands even in cases where a classical economist might argue that it is rational for them to do so. Due in part to price stickiness, it was established that the interaction of "[[aggregate demand]]" and "[[aggregate supply]]" may lead to stable unemployment equilibria{{snd}}and in those cases, it is on the state, not the market, that economies must depend for their salvation. In contrast, Keynes argued that demand is what creates supply and not the other way around. He questioned Say's Law by asking what would happen if the money that is being given to individuals is not finding its way back into the economy and is saved instead. He suggested the result would be a recession. To tackle the fear of a recession Say's Law suggests government intervention. This government intervention can be used to prevent any further increase in savings in the form of a decreased interest rate. Decreasing the interest rate will encourage people to start spending and investing again, or so it is stated by Say's Law. The reason behind this is that when there is little investing, savings start to accumulate and reach a stopping point in the flow of money. During the normal economic activity, it would be justified to have savings because they can be given out as loans but in this case, there is little demand for them, so they are doing no good for the economy. The supply of savings then exceeds the demand for loans and the result is lower prices or lower interest rates. Thus, the idea is that the money that was once saved is now re-invested or spent, assuming lower interest rates appeal to consumers. To Keynes, however, this was not always the case, and it couldn't be assumed that lower interest rates would automatically encourage investment and spending again since there is no proven link between the two.<ref name="kishtainy"/>

[[File:Keynes caricature Low 1934-1.jpg|left|thumb|Caricature by [[David Low (cartoonist)|David Low]], 1934]]

The ''General Theory'' argues that demand, not supply, is the key variable governing the overall level of economic activity. Aggregate demand, which equals total un-hoarded income in a society, is defined by the sum of consumption and investment. In a state of unemployment and unused production capacity, one can enhance employment and total income ''only'' by ''first'' increasing expenditures for either consumption or investment. Without government intervention to increase expenditure, an economy can remain trapped in a low-employment equilibrium. The demonstration of this possibility has been described as the revolutionary formal achievement of the work.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=528–538}}
The book advocated activist economic policy by government to stimulate demand in times of high unemployment, for example by spending on [[public works]]. "Let us be up and doing, using our idle resources to increase our wealth," he wrote in 1928. "With men and plants unemployed, it is ridiculous to say that we cannot afford these new developments. It is precisely with these plants and these men that we shall afford them."<ref name="Cassidy2011"/>

The ''General Theory'' is often viewed as the foundation of modern [[macroeconomics]]. Few senior American economists agreed with Keynes through most of the 1930s.<ref name="Hazlit">
{{cite book
|last=Hazlitt
|first=Henry
|title=The critics of Keynesian Economics
|year=1995
|orig-year=1960
|isbn=978-1572460133
|publisher=[[Foundation for Economic Education]]
|location=Irvington-on-Hudson, New York
}}</ref>
Yet his ideas were soon to achieve widespread acceptance, with eminent American professors such as [[Alvin Hansen]] agreeing with the ''General Theory'' before the outbreak of World War II.<ref name="new economics">
{{cite book
|first = Seymour E.
|last=Harris
|title=The New Economics: Keynes's Influence on Theory and Public Policy
|year=2005
|pages = xxii, 46
|isbn=1419145347
|publisher=Kessinger Publishing
}}
</ref><ref>
{{cite journal
|last=Martin
|first=Kingsley
|date=16 March 1940
|title=Mr Keynes Has A Plan
|journal=[[Picture Post]]
}}
</ref><ref name="K rev. and critics"/>

Keynes himself had only limited participation in the theoretical debates that followed the publication of the ''General Theory'' as he suffered a heart attack in 1937, requiring him to take long periods of rest. Among others, [[Hyman Minsky]] and [[Post-Keynesian economics|Post-Keynesian]] economists have argued that as a result, Keynes's ideas were diluted by those keen to compromise with classical economists or to render his concepts with mathematical models like the [[IS–LM model]] (which, they argue, distort Keynes's ideas).{{r|Minksky|K rev. and critics}} Keynes began to recover in 1939, but for the rest of his life his professional energies were directed largely towards the practical side of economics: the problems of ensuring optimum allocation of resources for the war efforts, post-war negotiations with America, and the new international financial order that was presented at the [[Bretton Woods Conference]].

In the ''General Theory'' and later, Keynes responded to the socialists who argued, especially during the Great Depression of the 1930s, that capitalism caused war. He argued that if capitalism were managed domestically and internationally (with coordinated international Keynesian policies, an international monetary system that did not pit the interests of countries against one another, and a high degree of freedom of trade), then this system of managed capitalism could promote peace rather than conflict between countries. His plans during World War II for post-war international economic institutions and policies (which contributed to the creation at Bretton Woods of the [[International Monetary Fund]] and the [[World Bank]], and later to the creation of the [[General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade]] and eventually the [[World Trade Organization]]) were aimed to give effect to this vision.<ref>See [[Donald Markwell|Markwell, Donald]] (2006). ''John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace'', Oxford University Press.</ref>

Although Keynes has been widely criticised{{snd}}especially by members of the [[Chicago school of economics]]{{snd}}for advocating in their view irresponsible government spending financed by borrowing, in fact he was a firm believer in balanced budgets and regarded the proposals for programmes of public works during the Great Depression as an exceptional measure to meet the needs of exceptional circumstances.{{sfn|Davenport-Hines|2015|p={{page needed|date=January 2025}} }}

===Second World War===
[[Image:WhiteandKeynes.jpg|thumb|upright| Keynes (right) and the US representative [[Harry Dexter White]] at the inaugural meeting of the [[International Monetary Fund]]'s Board of Governors in [[Savannah, Georgia]] in 1946]]
During the [[Second World War]], Keynes argued in ''[[How to Pay for the War]]'', published in 1940, that the war effort should be largely financed by higher taxation and especially by compulsory saving (essentially workers lending money to the government), rather than [[deficit spending]], to avoid inflation. Compulsory saving would act to dampen domestic demand, assist in channelling additional output towards the war efforts, would be fairer than punitive taxation and would have the advantage of helping to avoid a post-war slump by boosting demand once workers were allowed to withdraw their savings. In September 1941 he was proposed to fill a vacancy in the Court of Directors of the [[Bank of England]], and subsequently carried out a full term from the following April.<ref>Gazettes: {{ubl|{{London Gazette|issue=35279|page=5489|date=19 September 1941}} | {{London Gazette|issue=35511|page=1540|date=3 April 1942}} }}</ref> In June 1942, Keynes was rewarded for his service with a [[hereditary peer]]age in the King's Birthday Honours.<ref name="TheLondon">{{London Gazette|issue=35586|page=2475|date=5 June 1942}}</ref> On 7 July his title was [[The London Gazette|gazetted]] as "'''Baron Keynes''', of Tilton, in the County of [[Sussex]]" and he took his seat in the [[House of Lords]] on the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]] benches.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=35623|page=2987|date=7 July 1942}}</ref>

As the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] victory began to look certain, Keynes was heavily involved, as leader of the British delegation and chairman of the [[World Bank]] commission, in the mid-1944 negotiations that established the [[Bretton Woods system]]. The Keynes plan, concerning an international clearing-union, argued for a radical system for the management of currencies. He proposed the creation of a common world unit of currency, the [[bancor]] and new global institutions{{snd}}a world [[central bank]] and the [[International Clearing Union]]. Keynes envisaged these institutions as managing an international trade and payments system with strong incentives for countries to avoid substantial trade deficits or surpluses.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Duggan|first=M.C.|title=Taking Back Globalization: A China-United States Counterfactual Using Keynes's 1941 International Clearing Union|url=https://www.academia.edu/21885358|journal=Review of Radical Political Economics|language=en|volume=45|issue=4|pages=508–516 |doi=10.1177/0486613412475191|s2cid=154224790|issn=0486-6134|access-date=12 March 2018|archive-date=10 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210510133835/https://www.academia.edu/21885358/Taking_Back_Globalization_A_China_United_States_Counterfactual_Using_Keyness_1941_International_Clearing_Union|url-status=live}}</ref> The US's greater negotiating strength, however, meant that the outcomes accorded more closely to the more conservative plans of [[Harry Dexter White]]. According to US economist [[J. Bradford DeLong]], on almost every point where he was overruled by the Americans, Keynes was later proven correct by events.<ref>{{cite web|author=Brad Delong|date=December 2000
|url= http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Econ_Articles/reviews/skidelsky3.html
|title= Review of Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: ''Fighting for Britain 1937–1946''
|publisher=Berkeley university
|access-date= 14 June 2009
|archive-date= 14 October 2009
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20091014073814/http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Econ_Articles/reviews/skidelsky3.html}}
* {{cite journal |last1=DeLong |first1=J. Bradford |title=Review of Skidelsky's John Maynard Keynes: ''Fighting for Britain'' |journal=Journal of Economic Literature |date=1 February 2002 |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=155–162 |doi=10.1257/0022051027010}}</ref>

The two new institutions, later known as the World Bank and the [[International Monetary Fund]] (IMF), were founded as a compromise that primarily reflected the American vision. There would be no incentives for states to avoid a large [[Balance of trade|trade surplus]]; instead, the burden for correcting a trade imbalance would continue to fall only on the [[Deficit spending|deficit]] countries, which Keynes had argued were least able to address the problem without inflicting economic hardship on their populations. Yet, Keynes was still pleased when accepting the final agreement, saying that if the institutions stayed true to their founding principles, "the brotherhood of man will have become more than a phrase."<ref>
{{cite book
|last=Keynes
|first=John Maynard
|editor-first=Donald |editor-last=Moggridge
|title=Activities 1941–1946: Shaping the post war world
|series=The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes
|year=1980
|volume=26
|chapter=Speech by Lord Keynes in Moving to Accept the Final Act at the Closing Plenary Session, Bretton Woods, 22 July 1944
|page=103
|publisher=Macmillan

|location=London

|isbn=0333107365
}}
</ref><ref>
{{cite book
|first = G. Edward
|last=Griffin
|title=The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
|year=2004
|pages= 85–106
|publisher=American Media
|isbn = 0912986409
}}
</ref>

===Postwar===
After the war, Keynes continued to represent the United Kingdom in international negotiations despite his deteriorating health. He succeeded in obtaining preferential terms from the United States [[Anglo-American loan|for new and outstanding debts]] to facilitate the rebuilding of the British economy.{{r|timeline|at=[https://www.maynardkeynes.org/keynes-career-timeline.html#intfin §1945 to 1946]}}

Just before his death in 1946, Keynes told Henry Clay, a professor of social economics and advisor to the [[Bank of England]],<ref>{{cite book
|first=Richard
|last=Sayers
|authorlink=Richard Sidney Sayers
|title=The Bank of England, 1891–1944|volume=1
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8hY9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA325
|isbn=978-0521210676
|year=1976
|publisher=CUP Archive
|access-date=25 August 2020
|archive-date=17 April 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417174517/https://books.google.com/books?id=8hY9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA325
|url-status=live
}}</ref> of his hopes that [[Adam Smith]]'s "[[invisible hand]]" could help Britain out of the economic hole it was in: "I find myself more and more relying for a solution of our problems on the invisible hand which I tried to eject from economic thinking twenty years ago."{{r|timeline|at=[https://www.maynardkeynes.org/keynes-career-timeline.html#intfin §1945 to 1946]}}

==Economic viewpoint==
===Views on free trade and protectionism===
====Turning point of the Great Depression====
According to Keynesian theory, trade deficits are harmful. The countries that import more than they export weaken their economies. When the trade deficit increases, unemployment rises and [[gross domestic product]] (GDP) slows down. Furthermore, surplus countries exert a "negative externality" on their trading partners. They get richer at the expense of others and destroy the output of their trading partners. John Maynard Keynes believed that the products of surplus countries should be taxed to avoid trade imbalances.{{r|stig}}

At the beginning of his career, Keynes was an economist close to [[Alfred Marshall]], deeply convinced of the benefits of free trade. From the crisis of 1929 onwards, noting the commitment of the British authorities to defend the gold parity of the pound sterling and the rigidity of nominal wages, he gradually adhered to protectionist measures.{{r|Maurin free}}

On 5 November 1929, when heard by the [[Macmillan Committee]] to bring the British economy out of the crisis, Keynes indicated that the introduction of tariffs on imports would help to rebalance the trade balance. The committee's report states in a section entitled "import control and export aid", that in an economy where there is not full employment, the introduction of tariffs can improve production and employment. Thus, the reduction of the trade deficit favours the country's growth.{{r|Maurin free}}

In January 1930, in the Economic Advisory Council, Keynes proposed the introduction of a system of protection to reduce imports. In the autumn of 1930, he proposed a uniform tariff of 10% on all imports and subsidies of the same rate for all exports.{{r|Maurin free}} In the ''Treatise on Money'', published in the autumn of 1930, he took up the idea of tariffs or other trade restrictions with the aim of reducing the volume of imports and rebalancing the balance of trade.{{r|Maurin free}}

On 7 March 1931, in the ''[[New Statesman and Nation]]'', he wrote an article entitled ''Proposal for a Tariff Revenue''. He pointed out that the reduction in wages led to a reduction in national demand which constrained markets. Instead, he proposed the idea of an expansionary policy combined with a tariff system to neutralise the effects on the balance of trade. The application of customs tariffs seemed to him "unavoidable, whoever the Chancellor of the Exchequer might be". Thus, for Keynes, an economic recovery policy is only fully effective if the trade deficit is eliminated. He proposed a 15% tax on manufactured and semi-manufactured goods and 5% on certain foodstuffs and raw materials, with others needed for exports exempted (wool, cotton).{{r|Maurin free}}

In 1932, in an article entitled ''The Pro- and Anti-Tariffs'', published in ''[[The Listener (magazine)|The Listener]]'', he envisaged the protection of farmers and certain sectors such as the automobile and iron and steel industries, considering them indispensable to Britain.{{r|Maurin free}}

====Critique of the theory of comparative advantage====
In the post-crisis situation of 1929, Keynes judged the assumptions of the free trade model unrealistic. He criticised, for example, the neoclassical assumption of wage adjustment.{{r|Maurin free|Maurin thesis}}

As early as 1930, in a note to the Economic Advisory Council, he doubted the intensity of the gain from specialisation in the case of manufactured goods. While participating in the MacMillan Committee, he admitted that he no longer "believed in a very high degree of national specialisation" and refused to "abandon any industry which is unable, for the moment, to survive". He also criticised the static dimension of the theory of comparative advantage, which, in his view, by fixing comparative advantages definitively, led in practice to a waste of national resources.{{r|Maurin free|Maurin thesis}}

In the ''[[Daily Mail]]'' of 13 March 1931, he called the assumption of perfect sectoral labour mobility "nonsense" since it states that a person made unemployed contributes to a reduction in the wage rate until he finds a job. But for Keynes, this change of job may involve costs (job search, training) and is not always possible. Generally speaking, for Keynes, the assumptions of full employment and automatic return to equilibrium discredit the theory of comparative advantage.{{r|Maurin free|Maurin thesis}}

In July 1933, he published an article in the ''New Statesman and Nation'' entitled ''National Self-Sufficiency'', in which he criticised the argument of the specialisation of economies, which is the basis of free trade. He thus proposed the search for a certain degree of self-sufficiency. Instead of the specialisation of economies advocated by the Ricardian theory of comparative advantage, he prefers the maintenance of a diversity of activities for nations.{{r|Maurin thesis}} In it he refutes the principle of peacemaking trade. His vision of trade became that of a system where foreign capitalists compete for new markets. He defends the idea of producing on national soil when possible and reasonable and expresses sympathy for the advocates of [[protectionism]].{{r|National Self-Sufficiency}}
He notes in ''National Self-Sufficiency'':{{r|National Self-Sufficiency|Maurin free}}
{{cquote|A considerable degree of international specialization is necessary in a rational world in all cases where it is dictated by wide differences of climate, natural resources, native aptitudes, level of culture and density of population. But over an increasingly wide range of industrial products, and perhaps of agricultural products also, I have become doubtful whether the economic loss of national self-sufficiency is great enough to outweigh the other advantages of gradually bringing the product and the consumer within the ambit of the same national, economic, and financial organization. Experience accumulates to prove that most modern processes of mass production can be performed in most countries and climates with almost equal efficiency.
}}

He also writes in ''National Self-Sufficiency'':{{r|National Self-Sufficiency|Maurin free}}{{cquote|I sympathize, therefore, with those who would minimize, rather than with those who would maximize, economic entanglement among nations. Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel{{snd}}these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily national.
}}

Later, Keynes had a written correspondence with [[James Meade]] centred on the issue of import restrictions. Keynes and Meade discussed the best choice between quota and tariff. In March 1944 Keynes began a discussion with [[Marcus Fleming]] after the latter had written an article entitled ''Quotas versus depreciation''. On this occasion, we see that he has definitely taken a protectionist stance after the [[Great Depression]]. He considered that quotas could be more effective than currency depreciation in dealing with external imbalances. Thus, for Keynes, currency depreciation was no longer sufficient and protectionist measures became necessary to avoid trade deficits. To avoid the return of crises due to a self-regulating economic system, it seemed essential to him to regulate trade and stop free trade (deregulation of foreign trade).{{r|Maurin free}}

===Views on trade imbalances===
Keynes was the principal author of a proposal{{snd}}the so-called Keynes Plan{{snd}}for an [[International Clearing Union]]. The two governing principles of the plan were that the problem of settling outstanding balances should be solved by "creating" additional "international money", and that debtor and creditor should be treated almost alike as disturbers of equilibrium. In the event, though, the plans were rejected, in part because "American opinion was naturally reluctant to accept the principle of equality of treatment so novel in debtor-creditor relationships".{{r|outline|pp=[https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.16802/page/327/mode/2up 326–329]}}

The new system is not founded on free-trade (liberalisation<ref name="inve_Dere">{{cite web |title=What Is Deregulation? |work=[[Investopedia]] |date=25 June 2019 |access-date=5 September 2019 |url=https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deregulate.asp |quote=Deregulation is the reduction or elimination of government power in a particular industry, usually enacted to create more competition within the industry. |archive-date=8 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190608083418/https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deregulate.asp |url-status=live }}</ref> of foreign trade<ref name="inve_Trad">{{cite web |title=What Is Trade Liberalization |work=[[Investopedia]] |date=18 April 2019 |access-date=5 September 2019 |url=https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/trade-liberalization.asp |quote=Trade liberalization is the removal or reduction of restrictions or barriers on the free exchange of goods between nations. |archive-date=21 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190721162849/https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/trade-liberalization.asp |url-status=live }}</ref>) but rather on the regulation of international trade, to eliminate trade imbalances: the nations with a surplus would have an incentive to reduce it, and in doing so they would automatically clear other nations deficits.<ref name="scho_">{{cite web |title=Current Global Imbalances and the Keynes Plan (PDF) |author=Costabile, Lilia |work=[[Political Economy Research Institute]] |date=December 2007 |access-date=5 September 2019 |url=https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190228191918/https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&context=peri_workingpapers |archive-date=28 February 2019 |url-status=dead }}</ref> He proposed a global bank that would issue its currency{{snd}}the bancor{{snd}}which was exchangeable with national currencies at fixed rates of exchange and would become the unit of account between nations, which means it would be used to measure a country's trade deficit or trade surplus. Every country would have an overdraft facility in its bancor account at the International Clearing Union. He pointed out that surpluses lead to weak global aggregate demand{{snd}}countries running surpluses exert a "negative externality" on trading partners, and pose, far more than those in deficit, a threat to global prosperity.<ref name="stig">{{Cite news |last1=Stiglitz |first1=Joseph |date=5 May 2010 |newspaper=The Guardian |title=Reform the euro or bin it |department=[Opinion] |access-date=29 January 2025 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/may/05/reform-euro-or-bin-it-greece-germany}}</ref>

In his 1933 ''[[Yale Review]]'' article "National Self-Sufficiency",{{r|National Self-Sufficiency}}<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.india-seminar.com/2009/601/601_david_singh_grewali.htm |title=What Keynes warned about globalization |last=Grewal |first=David Singh |date=September 2009 |website=Seminar Magazine |location=New Delhi, India |issn=0971-6742 |access-date=5 September 2019 |archive-date=21 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200721043539/http://www.india-seminar.com/2009/601/601_david_singh_grewali.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> he already highlighted the problems created by free trade. His view, supported by many economists and commentators at the time, was that creditor nations may be just as responsible as debtor nations for disequilibrium in exchanges and that both should be under an obligation to bring trade back into a state of balance. Failure for them to do so could have serious consequences. In the words of [[Geoffrey Crowther, Baron Crowther|Geoffrey Crowther]], then editor of ''[[The Economist]]'', "If the economic relationships between nations are not, by one means or another, brought fairly close to balance, then there is no set of financial arrangements that can rescue the world from the impoverishing results of chaos."{{r|outline|p=336}}

These ideas were informed by events prior to the [[Great Depression]] when{{snd}}in the opinion of Keynes and others{{snd}}international lending, primarily by the US, exceeded the capacity of sound investment and so got diverted into non-productive and speculative uses, which in turn invited default and a sudden stop to the process of lending.{{r|outline|pp=368–372}}

Influenced by Keynes, economics texts in the immediate post-war period put a significant emphasis on balance in trade. For example, the second edition of the popular introductory textbook, ''An Outline of Money'',{{r|outline}} devoted the last three of its ten chapters to questions of foreign exchange management and in particular the "problem of balance". However, in more recent years, since the end of the [[Bretton Woods system]] in 1971, with the increasing influence of [[monetarist]] schools of thought in the 1980s, and particularly in the face of large sustained trade imbalances, these concerns{{snd}}and particularly concerns about the destabilising effects of large trade surpluses{{snd}}have largely disappeared from [[mainstream economics]] discourse<ref>{{cite book |author=Krugman, P |author2=Wells, R |year=2006 |title=Economics |publisher=Worth Publishers }}</ref>{{Page needed|date=January 2024}} and Keynes's insights have slipped from view.<ref>{{cite book |author=Duncan, R |title=The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures |url=https://archive.org/details/dollarcrisiscaus00dunc_0 |url-access=registration |year=2005 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-0470821701 }}</ref>{{Page needed|date=January 2024}} They received some attention again after the [[2008 financial crisis]].<ref name="monb_Clea">{{cite web |title=Clearing Up This Mess |author=Monbiot, George |work=George Monbiot Website |date=18 November 2008 |access-date=5 September 2019 |url=https://www.monbiot.com/2008/11/18/clearing-up-this-mess |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090123161345/http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/11/18/clearing-up-this-mess/ |archive-date=23 January 2009 }}</ref>

===Views on inflation===
Keynes has been characterised as being indifferent or even positive about mild inflation.{{r|ecp|pp=[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/ess_inflation.html 220]–[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.14117/page/n239/mode/2up 232]}} He had expressed a preference for inflation over [[deflation]], saying that if one has to choose between the two evils, it is "better to disappoint the rentier" than to inflict pain on working-class families.<ref>{{cite book|last=Tabb|first=William K.|title=Reconstructing Political Economy: The Great Divide in Economic Thought|year=2002|publisher=Routledge|page=151|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vj3ovRJfufQC&pg=PA151|isbn=978-0203049310|access-date=27 June 2015|archive-date=15 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150315051114/http://books.google.com/books?id=Vj3ovRJfufQC&pg=PA151|url-status=live}}</ref> Keynes was also aware of the dangers of inflation.<ref name="K rev. and critics"/>{{Page range too broad|date=January 2024}} In ''[[The Economic Consequences of the Peace]]'', he wrote:{{r|ecp|p=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.14117/page/n228/mode/1up 220]}} {{blockquote|[[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.}}

===Views on alienation===
Keynes was not deeply concerned with alienation and did not explicitly use the term in his writings. While Keynes was pro-business and viewed capitalism as essential for economic growth, he acknowledged that it created economic insecurity and dissatisfaction, which could alienate workers, yet he believed this was only a temporary problem. In his book the Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren (1930), he envisioned a future where society would become so wealthy that the pursuit of money for its own sake would become irrelevant, effectively eliminating alienation.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kishtainy |first=Niall |title=A Little History of Economics |year=2025 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0300283242 |pages=104–108 |language=English}}</ref> He believed that continuous economic growth would eventually reduce the need for excessive labor and alleviate extreme inequality, allowing people to pursue more fulfilling lives. While Keynes' optimistic vision has not fully materialized, global wealth has grown significantly since his time. Yet, alienation remains a pressing issue, especially during periods of rising inequality, suggesting that economic growth alone may not be enough to eliminate the problem. &nbsp;

==Influence and legacy==
[[Image:Attlee with GeorgeVI HU 59486.jpg|thumb|upright|Prime Minister [[Clement Attlee]] with King [[George VI]] after Attlee won the [[1945 United Kingdom general election|1945 election]]]]

===Keynesian ascendancy 1939–79===
{{Main|Keynesian Revolution}}

From the end of the Great Depression to the mid-1970s, Keynes provided the main inspiration for economic policymakers in Europe, America and much of the rest of the world.<ref name="K rev. and critics">{{cite book|last=Fletcher|first=Gordon A.|title=Keynesian Revolution and Its Critics: Issues of Theory and Policy for the Monetary Production Economy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZKawCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA88|edition=second|year=1989|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-1349201082|pages=xix–xxi, 88, 189–191, 234–238, 256–261|access-date=10 May 2017|archive-date=15 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615091912/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZKawCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA88|url-status=live}}{{Page range too broad|date=January 2024}}</ref> While economists and policymakers had become increasingly won over to Keynes's way of thinking in the mid and late 1930s, it was only after the outbreak of World War II that governments started to borrow money for spending on a scale sufficient to eliminate unemployment. According to the economist [[John Kenneth Galbraith]] (then a US government official charged with controlling inflation), in the rebound of the economy from wartime spending, "one could not have had a better demonstration of the Keynesian ideas".<ref name="Heights1">{{cite AV media
 |people         = [[Daniel Yergin]], William Cran (writers; producer)
 |chapter        = Episode One: The Battle of Ideas; Ch. 6: Worldwide War
 |title          = Commanding Heights
 |url            = http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/story/ch_menu.html
 |medium         = TV documentary series
 |publisher      = [[PBS]]
 |transcript     = ([Transcript at 7:00]: Onscreen title: "World War II, 1941")
 |date           = 2002
 |transcript-url = http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/tr_show01.html#6
 |access-date    = 28 June 2009
 |archive-date   = 16 May 2011
 |archive-url    = https://web.archive.org/web/20110516015358/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/tr_show01.html
 |url-status     = dead
}}</ref>

The [[Keynesian Revolution]] was associated with the rise of [[social liberalism|modern liberalism]] in the West during the post-war period.<ref>{{cite book|last=Clark|first=Barry Stewart|title=Political Economy: A Comparative Approach|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3wpiDzS45PsC&pg=PA101|year=1998|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0275958695|page=101|quote=Modern liberalism was the dominant ideology in Western nations from the end of World War II until the early 1970s. Its appeal stemmed from not only the success of Keynesian economics in maintaining prosperity during that period, but also from the postwar revulsion towards any pure form of ideology.|access-date=10 May 2017|archive-date=15 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615062112/https://books.google.com/books?id=3wpiDzS45PsC&pg=PA101|url-status=live}}</ref> Keynesian ideas became so popular that some scholars point to Keynes as representing the ideals of modern liberalism, as Adam Smith represented the ideals of [[classical liberalism]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Wolfe|first=Alan|authorlink=Alan Wolfe|title=The Future of Liberalism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZhqiXF0PsA8C&pg=PP1|year=2009|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|isbn=978-0307266774|quote=If Adam Smith is the quintessential classical liberal, the twentieth-century British economist John Maynard Keynes, whose ideas paved the way for massive public works projects and countercyclical economic policies meant to soften the ups and downs of the business cycle, best represents the modern version.|access-date=10 May 2017|archive-date=15 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615041432/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZhqiXF0PsA8C&pg=PP1|url-status=live}}</ref> After the war, [[Winston Churchill]] attempted to check the rise of Keynesian policy-making in the United Kingdom and used rhetoric critical of the [[mixed economy]] in his [[1945 United Kingdom general election|1945 election]] campaign. Despite his popularity as a war hero, Churchill suffered a landslide defeat to [[Clement Attlee]], whose government's economic policy continued to be influenced by Keynes's ideas.{{r|Heights1}}

====Neo-Keynesian economics====
{{Main|Neo-Keynesian economics}}

[[Image:Islm.svg|thumb|right|[[Neo-Keynesian economics|Neo-Keynesian]] [[IS–LM model]] is used to analyse the effect of [[demand shock]]s on the economy.]]
{{Capitalism sidebar}}

In the late 1930s and 1940s, economists (notably [[John Hicks]], [[Franco Modigliani]] and [[Paul Samuelson]]) attempted to interpret and formalise Keynes's writings in terms of formal [[mathematical model]]s. In what had become known as the [[neoclassical synthesis]], they combined Keynesian analysis with [[neoclassical economics]] to produce [[neo-Keynesian economics]], which came to dominate [[Mainstream economics|mainstream macroeconomic thought]] for the next 40 years.

By the 1950s, Keynesian policies were adopted by almost the entire developed world and similar measures for a [[mixed economy]] were used by many developing nations. By then, Keynes's views on the economy had become mainstream in the world's universities. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the developed and emerging free capitalist economies enjoyed exceptionally high growth and low unemployment.<ref>{{cite book |pages=115–128
|url=http://www.paecon.net/CRASH-1.pdf
|title=Crash: Why it happened and what to do about it |chapter=Reforming the world's international money
|access-date=5 April 2010 |date=2009
|editor= Edward Fullbrook |first=Paul|last= Davidson
|publisher= Real-world Economics Review |volume=1
|author-link=Paul Davidson (economist)
|archive-date=17 April 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417183357/http://www.paecon.net/CRASH-1.pdf
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref name="solution">{{cite book|last=Davidson|first=Paul|authorlink=Paul Davidson (economist)|title=The Keynes Solution: The Path to Global Economic Prosperity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E_abJgpEwJYC&pg=PP1|year=2009|publisher=St. Martin's Press|isbn=978-0230101012|access-date=10 May 2017|archive-date=15 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615082436/https://books.google.com/books?id=E_abJgpEwJYC&pg=PP1|url-status=live}}</ref> Professor Gordon Fletcher has written that the 1950s and 1960s, when Keynes's influence was at its peak, appear in retrospect as a [[Post–World War II economic expansion|golden age of capitalism]].<ref name="K rev. and critics"/>

In late 1965 ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine ran a cover article with a title comment from [[Milton Friedman]] (later echoed by US President [[Richard Nixon]]), "[[We are all Keynesians now]]". The article described the exceptionally favourable economic conditions then prevailing and reported that "Washington's economic managers scaled these heights by their adherence to Keynes's central theme: the modern capitalist economy does not automatically work at top efficiency, but can be raised to that level by the intervention and influence of the government." The article also states that Keynes was one of the three most important economists who ever lived, and that his ''[[The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money|General Theory]]'' was more influential than the ''magna opera'' of other famous economists, such as [[Adam Smith]]'s ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]''.<ref>
{{cite magazine
| title= We Are All Keynesians Now
| access-date=13 November 2008
| url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,842353-5,00.htm
| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090325215049/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,842353-5,00.htm
| url-status= dead
| archive-date= 25 March 2009
|magazine=Time
| date= 31 December 1965
|url-access=subscription
}}
</ref>

==== Multiplier ====
The concept of the multiplier was first developed by [[Richard Kahn, Baron Kahn|R.F. Kahn]]<ref>{{Cite journal|title=The Genesis of the Multiplier Theory|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2661731|journal=Oxford Economic Papers|year=1956|issn=0030-7653|pages=181–193|volume=8|issue=2|first=A. Ll.|last=Wright|doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.oep.a042261|jstor=2661731|access-date=6 September 2021|archive-date=6 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210906075746/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2661731|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref> in his article "The relation of home investment to unemployment"<ref>{{Cite journal|title=The Relation of Home Investment to Unemployment|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2223697|journal=The Economic Journal|year=1931|issn=0013-0133|pages=173–198|volume=41|issue=162|doi=10.2307/2223697|first=R. F.|last=Kahn|jstor=2223697|access-date=6 September 2021|archive-date=6 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210906075924/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2223697|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref> in ''The Economic Journal'' of June 1931. The Kahn multiplier was the employment multiplier; Keynes took the idea from Kahn and formulated the investment multiplier.<ref>{{cite web
| url = https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/investment-multiplier.asp
| title = What Does 'Investment Multiplier' Mean?
| website = Investopedia
| language = en
| access-date = 6 September 2021
| last1 = Fernando|last2= Boyle|first2=Michael J.
| archive-date = 6 September 2021
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210906080544/https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/investment-multiplier.asp
| url-status = live
}}</ref>

===Keynesian economics out of favour 1979–2007===
{{Main|Post-war displacement of Keynesianism}}

Keynesian economics were officially discarded by the British Government in 1979, but forces had begun to gather against Keynes's ideas over 30 years earlier. [[Friedrich Hayek]] had formed the [[Mont Pelerin Society]] in 1947, with the explicit intention of nurturing intellectual currents to one day displace Keynesianism and other similar influences. Its members included the [[Austrian School]] economist [[Ludwig von Mises]] along with the then-young Milton Friedman. Initially, the society had little impact on the wider world{{snd}}according to Hayek it was as if Keynes had been raised to sainthood after his death and that people refused to allow his work to be questioned.{{r|Heights1}}<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://hayekcenter.org/?p=849
|access-date=3 July 2009
|title=interview: Friedrich Hayek on John Maynard Keynes – Part II
|publisher=hayekcenter
|author=Friedrich Hayek
|authorlink=Friedrich Hayek
|archive-date=31 March 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200331235533/http://hayekcenter.org/?p=849
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
Friedman, however, began to emerge as a formidable critic of Keynesian economics from the mid-1950s, and especially after his 1963 publication of ''[[A Monetary History of the United States]]''.

On the practical side of economic life, "[[big government]]" had appeared to be firmly entrenched in the 1950s, but the balance began to shift towards the power of private interests in the 1960s. Keynes had written against the folly of allowing "decadent and selfish" speculators and financiers the kind of influence they had enjoyed after World War I. For two decades after World War II public opinion was strongly against private speculators, the disparaging label "[[Gnomes of Zurich]]" being typical of how they were described during this period. International speculation was severely restricted by the capital controls in place after Bretton Woods. According to the journalists [[Larry Elliott]] and [[Dan Atkinson]], 1968 was the pivotal year when power shifted in favour of private agents such as currency speculators. As the key 1968 event Elliott and Atkinson picked out America's suspension of the conversion of the dollar into gold except on request of foreign governments, which they identified as the beginning of the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system.<ref name="failedgods">
{{cite book
|author1=Larry Elliott
|author2=Dan Atkinson
|title=The Gods That Failed: How Blind Faith in Markets Has Cost Us Our Future
|year=2008
|isbn=978-1847920300
|page= 78
|publisher=The Bodley Head Ltd.
|url=https://archive.org/details/godsthatfailedho0000elli_s7v0/page/78
}}
</ref>

Criticisms of Keynes's ideas had begun to gain significant acceptance by the early 1970s, as they were then able to make a credible case that Keynesian models no longer reflected economic reality. Keynes himself included few formulas and no explicit mathematical models in his ''General Theory''. For economists such as [[Hyman Minsky]], Keynes's limited use of mathematics was partly the result of his scepticism about whether phenomena as inherently uncertain as economic activity could ever be adequately captured by mathematical models. Nevertheless, many models were developed by Keynesian economists, with a famous example being the [[Phillips curve]] which predicted an inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation. It implied that unemployment could be reduced by government stimulus with a calculable cost to inflation. In 1968, Milton Friedman published a paper arguing that the fixed relationship implied by the Philips curve did not exist.<ref>
{{cite journal
|last=Friedman
|first=Milton
|date=March 1968
|title=The Role of Monetary Policy
|journal=[[American Economic Review]]
}}
</ref>
Friedman suggested that sustained Keynesian policies could lead to both unemployment and inflation rising at once{{snd}}a phenomenon that soon became known as [[stagflation]]. In the early 1970s stagflation appeared in both the US and Britain just as Friedman had predicted, with economic conditions deteriorating further after the [[1973 oil crisis]]. Aided by the prestige gained from his successful forecast, Friedman led increasingly successful criticisms against the Keynesian consensus, convincing not only academics and politicians but also much of the general public with his radio and television broadcasts. The academic credibility of Keynesian economics was further undermined by additional criticism from other [[monetarist]]s trained in the [[Chicago school of economics]], by the [[Lucas critique]] and by criticisms from Hayek's Austrian School.<ref name="K rev. and critics"/> So successful were these criticisms that by 1980 [[Robert Lucas, Jr.|Robert Lucas]] claimed economists would often take offence if described as Keynesians.<ref name="Blinder">{{cite journal |journal=World Economics |number=2 |volume=2
|url=http://www.princeton.edu/~blinder/papers/01WE.pdf |id=(Interview by Brian Snowdon)
|title=Keeping the Keynesian Faith: Alan Blinder on the Evolution of Macroeconomics
|via=Princeton University |first1=Brian |last1=Snowdon
|first2=Alan |last2=Blinder
|date=April–June 2001
|access-date=29 January 2025
|author2-link=Alan Blinder
|archive-date=26 December 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101226101426/http://www.princeton.edu/~blinder/papers/01WE.pdf
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

Keynesian principles fared increasingly poorly on the practical side of economics{{snd}}by 1979 they had been displaced by monetarism as the primary influence on Anglo-American economic policy.<ref name="K rev. and critics"/> However, many officials on both sides of the Atlantic retained a preference for Keynes, and in 1984 the [[Federal Reserve System|Federal Reserve]] officially discarded monetarism, after which Keynesian principles made a partial comeback as an influence on policy-making.<ref>{{cite news
|title=The End of the Age of Milton Friedman
|access-date=13 November 2008
|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-madrick/the-end-of-the-age-of-mil_b_94228.html
|work=HuffPost
|first=Jeff
|last=Madrick
|date=8 April 2008
|archive-date=28 October 2008
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081028172824/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-madrick/the-end-of-the-age-of-mil_b_94228.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
Not all academics accepted the criticism against Keynes{{snd}}Minsky has argued that Keynesian economics had been debased by excessive mixing with neoclassical ideas from the 1950s, and that it was unfortunate that this branch of economics had even continued to be called "Keynesian".<ref name="Minksky"/> Writing in ''[[The American Prospect]]'', [[Robert Kuttner]] argued it was not so much excessive Keynesian activism that caused the economic problems of the 1970s but the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system of [[capital control]]s, which allowed [[capital flight]] from regulated economies into unregulated economies in a fashion similar to [[Gresham's law]] phenomenon (where weak currencies undermine strong ones).<ref>{{cite journal
|url=http://prospect.org/article/capital-rues
|title=Capital Rues
|journal=The American Prospect
|author=Robert Kuttner
|authorlink=Robert Kuttner
|date=23 October 2008
|access-date=23 November 2011
|archive-date=13 January 2012
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120113040136/http://prospect.org/article/capital-rues
|url-status=live
}} Reviewing ''Capital Rules: The Construction of Global Finance'', by [[Rawi Abdelal]], Harvard University Press, and ''The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing From Crisis to Sustainability'', by [[James Gustave Speth]], Yale University Press</ref>
Historian [[Peter Pugh]] has stated that a key cause of the economic problems afflicting America in the 1970s was the refusal to raise taxes to finance the [[Vietnam War]], which was against Keynesian advice.<ref name="forBeginners">
{{cite book|author1=Peter Pugh |author2=Chris Garratt |name-list-style=amp |title= Keynes for Beginners |year=1993|page= 155|isbn=1874166137|publisher=Icon}}</ref>

A more typical response was to accept some elements of the criticisms while refining Keynesian economic theories to defend them against arguments that would invalidate the whole Keynesian framework{{snd}}the resulting body of work largely composing [[New Keynesian economics]]. In 1992 [[Alan Blinder]] wrote about a "Keynesian Restoration", as work based on Keynes's ideas had to some extent become fashionable once again in academia, though in the mainstream it was highly synthesised with monetarism and other neoclassical thinking. In the world of policy making, [[free market]] influences broadly sympathetic to monetarism have remained very strong at government level{{snd}}in powerful normative institutions like the [[World Bank]], the [[IMF]] and [[US Treasury]], and in prominent opinion-forming media such as the ''[[Financial Times]]'' and ''[[The Economist]]''.<ref>
{{cite book
| last = Hunter-Wade
| first = Robert
| editor = John Ravenhill
| title = Global Political Economy
| year = 2005
| chapter= 11
| page = 293
| publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]
}}
</ref>

===Keynesian resurgence 2008–09===
{{Main|2008–09 Keynesian resurgence}}

[[Image:Manmohansingh04052007.jpg|thumb|upright|The economist [[Manmohan Singh]], the then-prime minister of India, spoke strongly in favour of Keynesian [[Stimulus (economics)|fiscal stimulus]] at the [[2008 G-20 Washington summit]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Ram|first1=N|title=Keynesian warning is one of seven 'big messages': Manmohan|url=http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/keynesian-warning-is-one-of-seven-big-messages-manmohan/article1378087.ece|access-date=8 October 2015|work=The Hindu|date=17 November 2008|archive-date=1 January 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101230121/http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/keynesian-warning-is-one-of-seven-big-messages-manmohan/article1378087.ece|url-status=live}}</ref>]]

The [[2008 financial crisis]] led to public skepticism about the free market consensus even from some on the economic right. In March 2008, [[Martin Wolf]], chief economics commentator at the ''Financial Times'', announced the death of the dream of global free-market capitalism.<ref>{{cite news |url-access=subscription
|title=The Rescue of Bear Stearns Marks Liberalization's Limit
|access-date=13 November 2008
|url=https://www.ft.com/content/8ced5202-fa94-11dc-aa46-000077b07658
|work=Financial Times
|date=25 March 2008
|last1=Wolf
|first1=Martin
|archive-date=14 February 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220214204141/https://www.ft.com/content/8ced5202-fa94-11dc-aa46-000077b07658?nclick_check=1
|url-status=live
}}</ref> In the same month macroeconomist [[James K. Galbraith]] used the 25th Annual Milton Friedman Distinguished Lecture to launch a sweeping attack against the consensus for monetarist economics and argued that Keynesian economics were far more relevant for tackling the emerging crises.<ref>{{cite conference
|url=http://utip.gov.utexas.edu/papers/CollapseofMonetarismdelivered.pdf
|title=The Collapse of Monetarism and the Irrelevance of the New Monetary Consensus
|conference=25th Annual Milton Friedman Distinguished Lecture at Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio
|date=31 March 2008|publisher=The University of Texas
|author=James K. Galbraith
|access-date=28 February 2009
|archive-date=4 March 2009
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090304235939/http://utip.gov.utexas.edu/papers/CollapseofMonetarismdelivered.pdf
|url-status=dead
}}</ref>
Economist [[Robert J. Shiller]] had begun advocating robust government intervention to tackle the financial crises, specifically citing Keynes.<ref>{{cite video |title=Robert Shiller: The sub prime solution |access-date=13 November 2008 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aj0kmAEACAAJ |publisher=Google Video}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It|first=Robert J.|last=Shiller|date=September 2008 |url=http://press.princeton.edu/releases/m8714.html |publisher=Princeton University Press |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081013045308/http://press.princeton.edu/releases/m8714.html |archive-date=13 October 2008 }}
</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2008/11/17/2003428821 |title=Reviving 'animal spirits' to raise confidence |first=Robert |last=Shiller |work=Taipei Times |date=19 May 2012 |access-date=26 May 2012 |archive-date=2 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121002141628/http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2008/11/17/2003428821 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences|Nobel laureate]] [[Paul Krugman]] also actively argued the case for vigorous Keynesian intervention in the economy in his columns for ''[[The New York Times]]''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05krugman.html |title=Fighting Off Depression |work=The New York Times |access-date=15 August 2009 |last=Krugman |first=Paul |date=5 January 2009 |archive-date=30 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430040012/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05krugman.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/opinion/23krugman.html |title=Stuck in the Muddle |work=The New York Times |access-date=15 August 2009 |last=Krugman |first=Paul |date=23 January 2009 |archive-date=11 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511185310/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/opinion/23krugman.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/opinion/15krugman.html |title=Stay the Course |work=The New York Times |access-date=15 August 2009 |last=Krugman |first=Paul |date=15 June 2009 |archive-date=11 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511185407/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/opinion/15krugman.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
Other prominent economic commentators who have argued for Keynesian government intervention to mitigate the [[2008 financial crisis]] included [[George Akerlof]],<ref name="independent.co.uk.2009">{{cite news|date = 22 March 2009|url = https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/kill-or-cure-us-stimulus-kicks-up-a-storm-1651056.html|title = Kill or cure? US stimulus kicks up a storm|work = The Independent|location = UK|access-date = 8 June 2010|last = Coy|first = Peter|archive-date = 28 July 2020|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200728201445/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/kill-or-cure-us-stimulus-kicks-up-a-storm-1651056.html|url-status = live}}</ref> [[J. Bradford DeLong]],<ref>{{cite news
| url = https://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-leamer-delong19-2009aug19,0,5376420.story
| title = Is Obama's stimulus working?
| work = Los Angeles Times
| date = 19 August 2009
| access-date = 20 February 2020
| archive-date = 12 January 2014
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140112152620/http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-leamer-delong19-2009aug19,0,5376420.story
| url-status = live
}}</ref> [[Robert Reich]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.rgemonitor.com/us-monitor/254320/the_mini_depression_and_the_maximum-strength_remedy |title=EconoMonitor " The Mini Depression and the Maximum-Strength Remedy |publisher=Rgemonitor.com |date=9 November 2008 |access-date=26 May 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091004054515/http://www.rgemonitor.com/us-monitor/254320/the_mini_depression_and_the_maximum-strength_remedy |archive-date=4 October 2009 }}</ref> and [[Joseph Stiglitz]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://mag.newsweek.com/2008/12/04/chasing-stiglitz.html |title=Chasing Stiglitz: Obama's economic team is missing the one guy who's been right all along |work=Newsweek |date=3 December 2008 |access-date=5 December 2013 |archive-date=5 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005022418/http://mag.newsweek.com/2008/12/04/chasing-stiglitz.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
Newspapers and other media have also cited work relating to Keynes by [[Hyman Minsky]],<ref name="Minksky"/> [[Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky|Robert Skidelsky]],{{r|2003 Skidel}} [[Donald Markwell]]<ref name="MarkwellRelations">{{cite web
|url=http://www.trinity.unimelb.edu.au/Media/docs/TrinityPaper33-61f67cdc-82f0-4363-a011-7beded1c37ba-0.pdf
|access-date=3 July 2009
|title=Keynes and International Economic and Political Relations
|publisher=Trinity College, University of Melbourne
|author=Donald Markwell
|authorlink=Donald Markwell
|archive-date=19 March 2012
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120319000207/http://www.trinity.unimelb.edu.au/Media/docs/TrinityPaper33-61f67cdc-82f0-4363-a011-7beded1c37ba-0.pdf
|url-status=live
}}</ref> and [[Axel Leijonhufvud]].<ref>
{{cite book |last=Leijonhufvud |first=Axel |title=''On Keynesian Economics and the Economics of Keynes'' |url=https://archive.org/details/onkeynesianecono0000leij |url-access=registration |year=1969 |isbn=0195009487 |publisher=Oxford University Press}}
</ref>

A series of major [[bailout]]s were pursued during the [[2008 financial crisis]], starting on 7 September 2008 with the announcement that the US Government was to nationalise the two [[government-sponsored enterprise]]s which oversaw most of the US subprime mortgage market{{snd}}[[Fannie Mae]] and [[Freddie Mac]]. In October, [[Alistair Darling]], the British [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]], referred to Keynes as he announced plans for substantial [[Stimulus (economics)|fiscal stimulus]] to head off the worst effects of recession, in accordance with Keynesian economic thought.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Darling invokes Keynes as he eases spending rules to fight recession
|access-date=13 November 2008
|url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/oct/20/economy-recession-treasury-energy-housing
|work=The Guardian
|location=London
|first=Allegra
|last=Stratton
|date=20 October 2008
|archive-date=23 October 2008
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081023063713/http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/20/economy-recession-treasury-energy-housing
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref name="Times Darling">{{cite news
|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4974689.ece
|title=Spend, spend, spend: Alistair Darling adopts John Maynard Keynes doctrine
|work=The Times
|author=Sam Coates
|access-date=14 June 2009
|location=London
|date=20 October 2008
|archive-date=10 May 2011
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110510010919/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4974689.ece
|url-status=dead
}}{{subscription required}}</ref> Similar policies have been adopted by other governments worldwide.<ref>
{{cite news
|url=https://www.forbes.com/business/2008/11/09/china-stimulus-economy-biz-cx_pm_1109notes.html
|title=China Announces Massive Stimulus Package
|work=Forbes
|author=Paul Maidment
|access-date=11 November 2008
|date=9 November 2008
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081112053515/http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/11/09/china-stimulus-economy-biz-cx_pm_1109notes.html|archive-date=12 November 2008}}
</ref><ref>{{cite web
|url= http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3156
|title= A global survey of stimulus plans
|publisher= Vox EU
|access-date= 14 June 2009
|archive-date= 17 June 2009
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090617205258/http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node%2F3156
|url-status= live
}}</ref> This was in stark contrast to the action imposed on [[Indonesia]] during the [[1997 Asian financial crisis]], when it was forced by the IMF to close 16 banks at the same time, prompting a [[bank run]].<ref>{{cite news
|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/oct/20/economic-policy-us-bailout
|title=The economics of hypocrisy
|access-date=27 November 2008
|work=The Guardian
|location=London
|date=20 October 2008
|first=Ha-Joon
|last=Chang
|archive-date=3 September 2013
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130903075232/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/oct/20/economic-policy-us-bailout
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
Much of the post-crisis discussion reflected Keynes's advocacy of international coordination of fiscal or monetary stimulus, and of international economic institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, which many had argued should be reformed as a "new Bretton Woods", and should have been even before the crises broke out.<ref name="MarkwellPeace">
{{cite book
|last=Markwell
|first=Donald
|title=John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace
|year=2006
|isbn=0198292368
|publisher=Oxford University Press
}}
</ref>
The IMF and United Nations economists advocated a coordinated international approach to fiscal stimulus.<ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite report
 |date  = 29 December 2008
 |url          = http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/spn/2008/spn0801.pdf
 |title        = Fiscal Policy for the Crisis
 |id=SPN/08/01
 |publisher    = [[International Monetary Fund]]
 |author       = Antonio Spilimbergo
 |author2      = Steve Symansky
 |author3      = Olivier Blanchard
 |author4      = Carlo Cottarelli
 |archive-date = 3 July 2009
|archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20090703224646/http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/spn/2008/spn0801.pdf
 |url-status   = live
}}</ref> [[Donald Markwell]] argued that in the absence of such an international approach, there would be a risk of worsening international relations and possibly even world war arising from economic factors similar to those present during the depression of the 1930s.<ref name="MarkwellRelations"/>

By the end of December 2008, the ''Financial Times'' reported that "the sudden resurgence of Keynesian policy is a stunning reversal of the orthodoxy of the past several decades."<ref>{{cite web
|url=https://www.ft.com/content/c4cf37f4-d611-11dd-a9cc-000077b07658
|title=The undeniable shift to Keynes
|work=Financial Times
|author=Chris Giles
|author2=Ralph Atkins
|author3=Krishna Guha
|access-date=23 January 2009
|archive-date=27 May 2009
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090527144547/https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c4cf37f4-d611-11dd-a9cc-000077b07658.html
|url-status=live
}}{{registration required}}</ref>
In December 2008, Paul Krugman released his book ''[[The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008]]'', arguing that economic conditions similar to those that existed during the earlier part of the 20th century had returned, making Keynesian policy prescriptions more relevant than ever. In February 2009 [[Robert J. Shiller]] and [[George Akerlof]] published ''[[Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism|Animal Spirits]]'', a book where they argue the current US stimulus package is too small as it does not take into account Keynes's insight on the importance of confidence and expectations in determining the future behaviour of [[Businessperson|businesspeople]] and other economic agents.

In the March 2009 speech entitled ''Reform the International Monetary System'', [[Zhou Xiaochuan]], the governor of the [[People's Bank of China]], came out in favour of Keynes's idea of a centrally managed global reserve currency. Zhou argued that it was unfortunate that part of the reason for the Bretton Woods system breaking down was the failure to adopt Keynes's [[bancor]]. Zhou proposed a gradual move towards increased use of IMF [[special drawing rights]] (SDRs).<ref>{{cite news
|url=https://www.ft.com/content/7851925a-17a2-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac
|title=China calls for new reserve currency
|author=Jamil Anderlini
|work=Financial Times
|date=23 March 2009
|access-date=13 April 2009
|archive-date=15 April 2009
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090415132431/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7851925a-17a2-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac.html
|url-status=live
}}{{registration required}}</ref><ref>
{{cite web
 |url=http://www.pbc.gov.cn/english/detail.asp?col=6500&id=178
 |title=Reform the International Monetary System
 |author=Zhou Xiaochuan
 |publisher=[[People's Bank of China]]
 |date=23 March 2009 |access-date=13 April 2009 |authorlink=Zhou Xiaochuan
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924065557/http://www.pbc.gov.cn/english/detail.asp?col=6500&amp;ID=178
 |archive-date= 24 September 2015
|url-status=dead
}}
</ref>
Although Zhou's ideas had not been broadly accepted, leaders meeting in April at the [[2009 G-20 London summit]] agreed to allow $250&nbsp;billion of special drawing rights to be created by the IMF, to be distributed globally. Stimulus plans were credited for contributing to a better-than-expected economic outlook by both the [[Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development|OECD]]<ref>{{cite news
|url=https://www.ft.com/content/115a3408-602c-11de-a09b-00144feabdc0
|title=OECD foresees end to global slide
|work=Financial Times
|author=Norma Cohen
|date=24 June 2009
|access-date=26 June 2009
|archive-date=26 June 2009
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090626224909/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/115a3408-602c-11de-a09b-00144feabdc0.html
|url-status=live
}}{{registration required}}</ref>
and the IMF,<ref>{{cite news
|url=https://www.ft.com/content/4e8677f0-6bc2-11de-9320-00144feabdc0
|title=IMF says world is pulling out of recession
|work=Financial Times
|author=Krishna Guha
|author2=Sarah O'Connor
|author3=Michael Mackenzie
|date=8 July 2009
|access-date=9 July 2009
|archive-date=14 August 2009
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090814012809/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4e8677f0-6bc2-11de-9320-00144feabdc0.html
|url-status=live
}}{{registration required}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2009/RES070809A.htm
|title=Recession Loosens Grip But Weak Recovery Ahead
|publisher=[[International Monetary Fund]]
|date=8 July 2009
|access-date=9 July 2009
|archive-date=11 July 2009
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090711115334/http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2009/RES070809A.htm
|url-status=live
}}</ref> in reports published in June and July 2009. Both organisations warned global leaders that recovery was likely to be slow, so counter-recessionary measures ought not be rolled back too early.

While the need for stimulus measures was broadly accepted among policymakers, there had been much debate over how to fund the spending. Some leaders and institutions, such as [[Angela Merkel]]<ref>{{cite news
|url= https://www.ft.com/content/ce8aa61c-1b39-11de-8aa3-0000779fd2ac |archive-url=https://archive.today/20150507040525/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ce8aa61c-1b39-11de-8aa3-0000779fd2ac.html
|archive-date=7 May 2015|url-access=subscription

|title= Merkel warns on stimulus
|work=Financial Times
|author1=Bertrand Benoit |author2=Quentin Peel |author3=Chris Bryant
|name-list-style=amp |date = 28 March 2009
}}
</ref>
and the [[European Central Bank]],<ref>{{cite news
|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aJ0m8YLAGiBY
|title=Keynes Arouses Fed as ECB Looks for Monetary Exit
|author=Mark Gilbert
|access-date=22 July 2009
|date=17 July 2009
|work=Bloomberg News
}}</ref>
expressed concern over the potential impact on inflation, national debt and the risk that a too-large stimulus will create an unsustainable recovery.

Among professional economists the revival of Keynesian economics has been even more divisive. Although many economists, such as George Akerlof, Paul Krugman, Robert Shiller and Joseph Stiglitz, supported Keynesian stimulus, others did not believe higher government spending would help the United States economy recover from the [[Great Recession]]. Some economists, such as [[Robert Lucas, Jr.|Robert Lucas]], questioned the theoretical basis for stimulus packages.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14030288 |title=The other-worldly philosophers |access-date=20 July 2009 |date=16 July 2009 |newspaper=The Economist |archive-date=26 July 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090726110016/http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14030288 |url-status=live }}</ref> Others, like [[Robert Barro]] and [[Gary Becker]], say that [[empirical evidence]] for beneficial effects from Keynesian stimulus does not exist.<ref>Robert J. Barro, Gary Becker, Wall Street Journal editorials, 24 August 2011, and 2 September 2011</ref> However, there is a growing academic literature that shows that fiscal expansion helps an economy grow in the near term, and that certain types of fiscal stimulus are particularly effective.<ref>{{cite web |last=Romer |first=Christina D. |title=What do we know about the effects of fiscal policy? Separating evidence from ideology |work=Lecture at Hamilton College |date=7 November 2011 |url=https://www.hamilton.edu/documents/Romer%20lecture%20notes.pdf |access-date=1 March 2018 |archive-date=8 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308045415/https://www.hamilton.edu/documents/Romer%20lecture%20notes.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="GLP_2011">{{cite journal |url=https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2011/wp11158.pdf |title=Expansionary Austerity: New International Evidence |last1=Guajardo |first1=Jaime |last2=Leigh |first2=Daniel |last3=Pescatori |first3=Andrea |date=July 2011 |journal=IMF Working Paper, WP/11/158 |publisher=International Monetary Fund |access-date=18 January 2012 |ssrn=1886910 |quote=Using this new dataset, our estimates suggest fiscal consolidation has contractionary effects on private domestic demand and GDP. |archive-date=30 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120130113952/http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2011/wp11158.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

===New Keynesian economics===
{{Main|New Keynesian economics}}

New Keynesian economics developed in the 1990s and early 2000s as a response to the critique that macroeconomics lacked [[microfoundations|microeconomic foundations]]. New Keynesianism developed models to provide microfoundations for Keynesian economics. It incorporated parts of [[new classical macroeconomics]] to develop the [[new neoclassical synthesis]], which forms the basis for [[mainstream economics|mainstream macroeconomics]] today.<ref>{{cite web|last=Woodford|first=Michael|title=Convergence in Macroeconomics: Elements of the New Synthesis|date= January 2008|url= http://www.columbia.edu/~mw2230/Convergence_AEJ.pdf|website=[[Columbia University]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mankiw |first1=N. Gregory |title=The Macroeconomist as Scientist and Engineer |journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives |date=December 2006 |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=29–46 |doi=10.1257/jep.20.4.29 |language=en |issn=0895-3309 |via=Harvard University |url= http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mankiw/files/macroeconomist_as_scientist.pdf?m=1360042085 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240907030637/https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mankiw/files/macroeconomist_as_scientist.pdf?m=1360042085 |archive-date=7 September 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Goodfriend|first1=Marvin|last2=King|first2=Robert G.|title=The New Neoclassical Synthesis and The Role of Monetary Policy |publisher=Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond| journal=Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Working Papers|date=June 1997 |number=98 |url=http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/working_papers/1998/pdf/wp98-5.pdf|access-date=11 May 2022|archive-date=4 September 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140904231537/http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/working_papers/1998/pdf/wp98-5.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Galí|first=Jordi|year=2018|title=The State of New Keynesian Economics: A Partial Assessment|url=https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.32.3.87|journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives|language=en|volume=32|issue=3|pages=87–112|doi=10.1257/jep.32.3.87|issn=0895-3309|hdl=10230/35942|s2cid=158736462|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

Two main assumptions define the New Keynesian approach to macroeconomics. Like the New Classical approach, New Keynesian macroeconomic analysis usually assumes that households and firms have [[rational expectations]]. However, the two schools differ in that New Keynesian analysis usually assumes a variety of [[market failure]]s. In particular, New Keynesians assume that there is [[imperfect competition]]<ref>[http://huwdixon.org/SurfingEconomics/chapter4.pdf The role of imperfect competition in new Keynesian economics], Chapter 4 of [http://huwdixon.org/SurfingEconomics/index.html Surfing Economics] by [[Huw Dixon]]</ref> in price and wage setting to help explain why prices and wages can become "[[Sticky (economics)|sticky]]", which means they do not adjust instantaneously to changes in economic conditions.

Wage and price stickiness, and the other market failures present in New Keynesian [[Model (macroeconomics)|models]], imply that the economy may fail to attain [[full employment]]. Therefore, New Keynesians argue that macroeconomic stabilisation by the government (using [[fiscal policy]]) and the [[central bank]] (using [[monetary policy]]) can lead to a more [[Pareto efficiency|efficient]] macroeconomic outcome than a ''[[laissez faire]]'' policy would.

==Overall views==
{{Liberalism UK|People}}

===Praise===
On a personal level, Keynes's charm was such that he was generally well received wherever he went{{snd}}even those who found themselves on the wrong side of his occasionally sharp tongue rarely bore a grudge.<ref>{{cite book | last = McCann | first = Charles Robert | title = John Maynard Keynes – critical responses | year = 1998 | volume = 4 | page = 21 | publisher = Taylor & Francis | isbn = 0415151937 }}</ref> Keynes's speech at the closing of the Bretton Woods negotiations was received with a lasting standing ovation, rare in international relations, as the delegates acknowledged the scale of his achievements made despite poor health.<ref name="Cunningham"/>

Austrian School economist [[Friedrich Hayek]] was Keynes's most prominent contemporary critic, with sharply opposing views on the economy.{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=482–485}} Yet after Keynes's death, he wrote: "He was the one really great man I ever knew, and for whom I had unbounded admiration. The world will be a very much poorer place without him."<ref name="Wapshott2011">{{cite book|last=Wapshott|first=Nicholas|authorlink=Nicholas Wapshott|title=Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=su1OvQrGVAAC&pg=PA206|year=2011|publisher=W.W. Norton|isbn=978-0393083118|page=206}}</ref> Colleague Nicholas Davenport recalled, "There were deep emotional forces about Maynard ... One could sense his humanity. There was nothing of the cold intellectual about him."<ref name="city rad">{{Cite book|last=Davenport|first=Nicholas |title=Memoirs of a city radical|date=1974|publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson|isbn=0297767968|page=48|oclc=462160277}}</ref>

[[Lionel Robbins]], former head of the economics department at the [[London School of Economics]], who engaged in many heated debates with Keynes in the 1930s, had this to say after observing Keynes in early negotiations with the Americans while drawing up plans for Bretton Woods:{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=760–761}}

{{blockquote|This went very well indeed. Keynes was in his most lucid and persuasive mood: and the effect was irresistible. At such moments, I often find myself thinking that Keynes must be one of the most remarkable men that have ever lived – the quick logic, the birdlike swoop of intuition, the vivid fancy, the wide vision, above all the incomparable sense of the fitness of words, all combine to make something several degrees beyond the limit of ordinary human achievement. }}

[[Douglas LePan]], an official from the [[High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom|Canadian High Commission]], wrote:{{r|2003 Skidel|p=[https://archive.org/details/johnmaynardkeyne0000skid_q4f4/page/788/mode/2up 789]}}

{{blockquote|I am spellbound. This is the most beautiful creature I have ever listened to. Does he belong to our species? Or is he from some other order? There is something mythic and fabulous about him. I sense in him something massive and sphinx like, and yet also a hint of wings. }}

[[Bertrand Russell]] named Keynes one of the most intelligent people he had ever known,<ref name="ES">{{cite news |last1=Hoggard |first1=Liz |title=Ten things you didn't know about Mr Keynes |url=http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23575559-ten-things-you-didnt-know-about-mr-keynes.do |access-date=8 September 2019 |work=[[Evening Standard]] |date=21 October 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100122235305/http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23575559-ten-things-you-didnt-know-about-mr-keynes.do |archive-date=22 January 2010}}</ref> commenting:<ref>{{cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |title=The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1872–1914 |page=97 |publisher=Unwin Paperbacks |year=1967}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Keynes's intellect was the sharpest and clearest that I have ever known. When I argued with him, I felt that I took my life in my hands, and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool.}}

Keynes's obituary in ''[[The Times]]'' included the comment: "There is the man himself{{snd}}radiant, brilliant, effervescent, gay, full of impish jokes ... He was a humane man genuinely devoted to the cause of the common good."<ref name="new economics"/>

===Critiques===
As a man of the centre described by some as having the greatest impact of any 20th-century economist,<ref name="50 greats"/> Keynes attracted considerable criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. In the 1920s, Keynes was seen as anti-establishment and was mainly attacked from the right. In the "red 1930s", many young economists favoured [[Marxism|Marxist]] views, even in Cambridge,<ref name="Minksky"/> and while Keynes was engaging principally with the right to try to persuade them of the merits of more progressive policy, the most vociferous criticism against him came from the left, who saw him as a supporter of capitalism. From the 1950s and onwards, most of the attacks against Keynes have again been from the right.

[[File:Friedrich Hayek portrait.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Friedrich Hayek]], one of Keynes's most prominent critics]]

In 1931, [[Friedrich Hayek]] extensively critiqued Keynes's 1930 ''Treatise on Money''.<ref>{{cite journal | url = https://www.mises.org/etexts/reflections.pdf | access-date = 20 May 2008 | title = Reflections on the Pure Theory of Money of Mr. J.M. Keynes | journal = [[Economica]] | author = Hayek, Friedrick August von | volume = 11 | date = August 1931 | archive-date = 28 May 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080528063216/http://www.mises.org/etexts/reflections.pdf | url-status = live }}</ref> After reading Hayek's ''[[The Road to Serfdom]]'', Keynes wrote to Hayek: "Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it."<ref>{{cite book | last = Hoover | first = Kenneth R. | title = Economics as Ideology | publisher = [[Rowman & Littlefield]] | year = 2008 | location = [[Lanham, Maryland]] | page = 152 | isbn = 978-0742531130 }}</ref> He concluded the letter with the recommendation:
{{blockquote|What we need therefore, in my opinion, is not a change in our economic programmes, which would only lead in practice to disillusion with the results of your philosophy; but perhaps even the contrary, namely, an enlargement of them. Your greatest danger is the probable practical failure of the application of your philosophy in the United States.}}

On the pressing issue of the time, whether deficit spending could lift a country from depression, Keynes replied to Hayek's criticism<ref>{{cite book | author = Heilbroner, Robert | title = The Worldly Philosophers | year = 2000 | page = 278 | isbn = 0671634828 | authorlink = Robert Heilbroner | title-link = The Worldly Philosophers | publisher = Simon & Schuster }}</ref> in the following way:

{{blockquote|I should... conclude rather differently. I should say that what we want is not no planning, or even less planning, indeed I should say we almost certainly want more. But the planning should take place in a community in which as many people as possible, both leaders and followers wholly share your moral position. Moderate planning will be safe enough if those carrying it out are rightly oriented in their minds and hearts to the moral issue.}}

Asked why Keynes expressed "moral and philosophical" agreement with Hayek's ''Road to Serfdom'', Hayek stated:<ref>{{cite web | access-date = 20 May 2008 | url = http://reason.com/hayekint.shtml | title = The Road from Serfdom | work = [[Reason (magazine)|Reason]] | date = July 1992 | last1 = Hazlett |first1 = Thomas W. | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081013182404/http://reason.com/hayekint.shtml|archive-date=13 October 2008 }}</ref>

{{blockquote|Because he believed that he was fundamentally still a classical English liberal and wasn't quite aware of how far he had moved away from it. His basic ideas were still those of individual freedom. He did not think systematically enough to see the conflicts. He was, in a sense, corrupted by political necessity.}}

According to some observers,{{who|date=November 2016}} Hayek felt that the post-World War II "Keynesian orthodoxy" gave too much power to the state, and that such policies would lead toward socialism.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Dransfield |first1 = Robert | last2 = Dransfield | first2 = Don | title = Key Ideas in Economics | publisher = Nelson Thornes | year = 2003 | isbn = 074877081X | page = 81 }}</ref>

While [[Milton Friedman]] described ''The General Theory'' as "a great book", he argues that its implicit separation of [[Real versus nominal value (economics)|nominal from real magnitudes]] is neither possible nor desirable. Macroeconomic policy, Friedman argues, can reliably influence only the nominal.<ref name="Friedman">{{cite journal | url=https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_quarterly/1997/spring/friedman | title=John Maynard Keynes | journal=Economic Quarterly | publisher=[[Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond]] | date=Spring 1997 | author=Friedman, Milton | volume=83/2 | access-date=17 September 2016 | archive-date=18 September 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160918012521/https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_quarterly/1997/spring/friedman | url-status=live }}</ref> He and other monetarists have consequently argued that [[Keynesian economics]] can result in [[stagflation]], the combination of low growth and high inflation that developed economies suffered in the early 1970s. More to Friedman's taste was the ''Tract on Monetary Reform'' (1923), which he regarded as Keynes's best work because of its focus on maintaining domestic price stability.<ref name="Friedman"/>

[[Joseph Schumpeter]] was an economist of the same age as Keynes and one of his main rivals. He was among the first reviewers to argue that Keynes's ''General Theory'' was not a general theory, but a special case.<ref name="HarvardPeter">{{cite web | url = http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5626.html | title = Dividends from Schumpeter's Noble Failure | publisher = Harvard Business School | author = Thomas K. McCraw | date = 7 February 2009 | access-date = 21 June 2009 | archive-date = 2 June 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090602023622/http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5626.html | url-status = live }}</ref> He said the work expressed "the attitude of a decaying civilisation". After Keynes's death Schumpeter wrote a brief biographical piece ''Keynes the Economist''{{snd}}on a personal level he was very positive about Keynes as a man, praising his pleasant nature, courtesy and kindness. He assessed some of Keynes's biographical and editorial work as among the best he'd ever seen. Yet Schumpeter remained critical of Keynes's economics, linking Keynes's childlessness to what Schumpeter saw as an essentially short-term view. He considered Keynes to have a kind of unconscious patriotism that caused him to fail to understand the problems of other nations. For Schumpeter, "Practical Keynesianism is a seedling which cannot be transplanted into foreign soil: it dies there and becomes poisonous as it dies."<ref name="Schumpeter">{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=jTDo58DZi1cC&q=The+New+Economics:+Keynes'+Influence+on+Theory+and+Public+Policy | title = The New Economics: Keynes's Influence on Theory and Public Policy | publisher = and Kessinger Publishing | author = Symour E Harris | author2 = Joseph Schumpter | trans-title = Keynes the Economist by Schumpter | pages = 73–101 | isbn = 978-1419145346 |year= 2005 | access-date = 14 February 2022 | archive-date = 24 August 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210824182049/https://books.google.com/books?id=jTDo58DZi1cC&q=The+New+Economics%3A+Keynes%27+Influence+on+Theory+and+Public+Policy | url-status = live }}</ref> He "admired and envied Keynes, but when Keynes died in 1946, Schumpeter's obituary gave Keynes this same off-key, perfunctory treatment he would later give [[Adam Smith]] in the ''History of Economic Analysis'', the "discredit of not adding a single innovation to the techniques of economic analysis."<ref>Prophet of innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and creative destruction.</ref>

[[Ludwig von Mises]], an [[Austrian school of economics|Austrian economist]], describes a Keynesian system as believing it can solve most problems with "more money and credit" which leads to a system of "[[inflation]]ism" in which "prices (of goods) rise higher and higher."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Hazlitt |first1=Henry |title=The Critics of Keynesian Economics |last2=Von Mises |first2=Ludwig |publisher=Foundation for Economic Education |year=1995 |isbn=157246013X |pages=305–306, 314}}</ref> [[Murray Rothbard]] wrote that Keynesian-style governmental regulation of money and credit created a "dismal monetary and banking situation," since it allows for the [[central bank]]ers that have the exclusive ability to print money to be "unchecked and out of control."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-03-07 |title=The Mystery of Banking |url=https://mises.org/book/export/html/64045 |access-date=2024-04-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240307141212/https://mises.org/book/export/html/64045 |archive-date=7 March 2024 }}</ref> Rothbard went on to say in an interview that, "There is one good thing about [[Karl Marx|(Karl) Marx]]: he was not a Keynesian."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-03-07 |title=Interview with Murray Rothbard on Man, Economy, and State, Mises, and the Future of the Austrian School {{!}} Mises Institute |url=https://mises.org/austrian-economics-newsletter/interview-murray-rothbard-man-economy-and-state-mises-and-future-austrian-school |access-date=2024-04-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240307141218/https://mises.org/austrian-economics-newsletter/interview-murray-rothbard-man-economy-and-state-mises-and-future-austrian-school |archive-date=7 March 2024 }}</ref>

President [[Harry S. Truman]] was sceptical of Keynesian theorising. He told [[Leon Keyserling]], a Keynesian economist who chaired Truman's [[Council of Economic Advisers]]: "Nobody can ever convince me that government can spend a dollar that it's not got."<ref name="Cassidy2011"/>

===Views on race===
Some critics have sought to show that Keynes had sympathies towards [[Nazism]], and a number of writers have described him as [[antisemitic]]. Keynes's private letters contain portraits and descriptions, some of which can be characterised as antisemitic, while others as [[philosemitic]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Reder |first=Melvin W. |year=2000 |title=The Anti-Semitism of Some Eminent Economists |journal=History of Political Economy |volume=32 |issue=4 |pages=833–856 |doi=10.1215/00182702-32-4-833 |s2cid=153960185 |url-access= |doi-access=}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Was Keynes Anti-Semitic?|journal=[[Economic and Political Weekly]]|volume=35|issue=6 May 2000|jstor=4409262|pages=1619–1624|last1=Chandavarkar|first1=A.|year=2000}}</ref>

Scholars have suggested that these reflect clichés current at the time that he accepted uncritically, rather than any racism.<ref name="Nina Paulovicova">{{cite web | url = https://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/pi/article/viewFile/1591/1117 | title = The Immoral Moral Scientist. John Maynard Keynes | publisher = University of Alberta | author = Nina Paulovicova | access-date = 14 June 2009 | archive-date = 2 May 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100502234852/http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/pi/article/viewFile/1591/1117 | url-status = live }}</ref> On several occasions Keynes used his influence to help his Jewish friends, most notably when he successfully lobbied for [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]] to be allowed residency in the United Kingdom, explicitly to rescue him from being deported to [[Anschluss|Nazi-occupied Austria]]. Keynes was a supporter of [[Zionism]], serving on committees supporting the cause.<ref name="Nina Paulovicova"/>

Allegations that he was racist or had totalitarian beliefs have been rejected by [[Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky|Robert Skidelsky]] and other biographers.<ref name="Cunningham"/> Professor Gordon Fletcher wrote that "the suggestion of a link between Keynes and any support of totalitarianism cannot be sustained".<ref name="K rev. and critics"/> Once the aggressive tendencies of the Nazis towards Jews and other minorities had become apparent, Keynes made clear his loathing of Nazism. As a lifelong pacifist he had initially favoured peaceful containment of [[Nazi Germany]], yet he began to advocate a forceful resolution while many conservatives were still arguing for appeasement. After the war started, he roundly criticised the Left for losing their nerve to confront [[Adolf Hitler]], saying:{{r|2003 Skidel|p=[https://archive.org/details/johnmaynardkeyne0000skid_q4f4/page/586/mode/2up 586]}}

{{blockquote|The intelligentsia of the Left were the loudest in demanding that the Nazi aggression should be resisted at all costs. When it comes to a showdown, scarce four weeks have passed before they remember that they are pacifists and write defeatist letters to your columns, leaving the defence of freedom and civilisation to [[Colonel Blimp]] and the Old School Tie, for whom Three Cheers.}}

==Personal life==
[[File:Duncan Grant with John Maynard Keynes.jpg|thumb|Painter [[Duncan Grant]] (left) with Keynes in 1912]]

===Relationships===
Keynes's early romantic and sexual relationships were exclusively with men.<ref name="Heilbroner nyt">{{cite news
|access-date=20 May 2008
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/skidelsky-keynes.html
|title=The man who made us all Keynesians
|work=The New York Times
|date=11 May 1986
|first=Robert L. |last=Heilbroner
|archive-date=6 April 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210406010809/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/skidelsky-keynes.html
|url-status=live
|quote=...{{nbsp}}the private Keynes, emerging in the passionate homosexual involvements that would rule his emotional life until his marriage to the famous Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova in 1925.
}}</ref> Keynes had been in relationships while at Eton and Cambridge; significant among these early partners were [[Dilly Knox]] and Daniel De Mendi Macmillan.{{r|supermac|p=27}}{{sfn|Strachey|1994|pp=123, 127, 715}} Keynes was open about his affairs, and from 1901 to 1915 kept separate diaries in which he tabulated his many sexual encounters.<ref name="zimroth diary">{{cite magazine |url=http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/824 |title=The Sex Diaries of John Maynard Keynes: A Key for the Prurient |magazine= The Economist|department=More Intelligent Life |date=28 January 2008 |first=Evan |last=Zimroth |archive-date=24 November 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091124021328/http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/824 }}</ref><ref>O'Grady, Sean (12 March 2015). [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/john-maynard-keynes-new-biography-reveals-shocking-details-about-the-economists-sex-life-10101971.html "John Maynard Keynes: New biography reveals shocking details about the economist's sex life"]. ''The Independent''. Retrieved 19 November 2015. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200715065218/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/john-maynard-keynes-new-biography-reveals-shocking-details-about-the-economists-sex-life-10101971.html |date=15 July 2020}}</ref> Keynes's relationship and later close friendship with Macmillan was to be fortunate, as Macmillan would go on to be chairman of the [[Macmillan Publishers]] founded by his grandfather, which first published Keynes' ''Economic Consequences of the Peace''.{{r|supermac|p=18}}

Attitudes in the [[Bloomsbury Group]], in which Keynes was avidly involved, were relaxed about homosexuality. Keynes, together with writer [[Lytton Strachey]], had reshaped the [[Victorian morality|Victorian attitudes]] of the [[Cambridge Apostles]]: "since [their] time, homosexual relations among the members were for a time common", wrote [[Bertrand Russell]].{{sfn|Strachey|1994|p=103}} The artist [[Duncan Grant]] has been described as "the supreme male love of Keynes's life", and their sexual relationship lasted from 1908 to 1915.{{sfn|Davenport-Hines|2015|p=219}} Keynes was having sex on a number of occasions with Lytton Strachey,{{r|Heilbroner nyt}} though they were, for the most part, love rivals rather than lovers. Keynes had won the affections of [[Arthur Hobhouse]]{{sfn|Strachey|1994|pp=108–110}} and, as with Grant, fell out with a jealous Strachey over it.{{sfn|Strachey|1994|pp=181–183}} Strachey had previously found himself put off by Keynes, not least because of his manner of "treat[ing] his love affairs statistically".{{sfn|Strachey|1994|p=128}} Other notable lovers included writer [[Francis Birrell]], Grant's partner [[David Garnett|Bunny Garnett]], classicist [[John Tresidder Sheppard]], brother of Lytton and psychoanalyst [[James Strachey]], and Indian academic [[Benoy Kumar Sarkar]].{{r|Moggridge}}

Political opponents have used Keynes's sexuality to attack his academic work.<ref name=Bartlett>{{cite news|last=Bartlett|first=Bruce|title=Keynes's Biggest Mistake|url=https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/keyness-biggest-mistake/|newspaper=The New York Times|date=7 May 2013|access-date=9 March 2017|archive-date=28 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210728084338/https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/keyness-biggest-mistake/|url-status=live}}</ref> One line of attack held that he was uninterested in the long-term ramifications of his theories because he had no children.<ref name=Bartlett/> [[Donald Kagan]], in '' On the Origins of War'', quotes [[Sally Marks]] and [[Stephen A. Schuker]] to suggest that "[Keynes's] passion for [[Carl Melchior]]" distorted his position in favor of Germany.<ref>Donald Kagan, ''On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace'', New york, Anchor Books, 1996, p. 290, n. 15</ref>

Keynes's friends in the Bloomsbury Group were initially surprised when, in his later years, he began pursuing affairs with women,<ref>Adam Trimingham, [http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/nostalgia/past_present/10030998.print/ "A man of numbers"] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20130707060933/http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/nostalgia/past_present/10030998.print/ |date=7 July 2013 }}, ''[[The Argus (Brighton)|The Argus]]'', 12 November 2012.</ref> demonstrating himself to be [[bisexuality|bisexual]].<ref>Sources describing Keynes as bisexual include:
* John Maynard Keynes, ''The Economic Consequences of the Peace,'' Indo-European Publishing, 2011, [https://books.google.com/books?id=WoPURzI_6eMC&pg=PA139 see back book cover notes] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101230121/https://books.google.com/books?id=WoPURzI_6eMC&pg=PA139 |date=1 January 2016 }}, {{ISBN|978-1604441161}}
* {{cite book |last1=Levy |first1=Paul|editor1=Milo Keynes |title=Essays on John Maynard Keynes |date=1975 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=London |isbn=978-0521205344 |oclc= |pages=60–72 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/essaysonjohnmayn0000unse_n9x6/page/60/mode/2up |chapter=The Bloomsbury Group |chapter-url-access=registration}}. See p. [https://archive.org/details/essaysonjohnmayn0000unse_n9x6/page/65/mode/1up 65].
* David Warsh, ''Economic Principles: The Masters and Mavericks of Modern Economics,'' [[Simon & Schuster]], 2010, [https://books.google.com/books?id=a2X71cAvnYoC&pg=PA3 p. 3] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211101074802/https://books.google.com/books?id=a2X71cAvnYoC&pg=PA3 |date=1 November 2021 }}, {{ISBN|978-1451602562}}</ref> [[Ray Strachey|Ray Costelloe]] (who later married [[Oliver Strachey]]) was an early heterosexual interest of Keynes.{{sfn|Strachey|1994|p=129}} In 1906, Keynes had written of this infatuation that, "I seem to have fallen in love with Ray a little bit, but as she isn't male I haven't [been] able to think of any suitable steps to take."{{r|Moggridge|p=104}}

===Marriage===
[[File:Lopokova and Keynes 1920s (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Lydia Lopokova]] and Keynes in the 1920s]]
In 1921, Keynes wrote that he had fallen "very much in love" with [[Lydia Lopokova]], a well-known Russian [[Ballet dancer|ballerina]] and one of the stars of [[Sergei Diaghilev]]'s ''[[Ballets Russes]]''.{{r|Moggridge|p=[https://archive.org/details/maynardkeyneseco0047mogg/page/395 395]}} In the early years of his courtship, he maintained an affair with a younger man, [[W. J. H. Sprott|Sebastian Sprott]], in tandem with Lopokova, but eventually chose Lopokova exclusively.<ref>Christiansen, Rupert (25 April 2008). [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3672942/The-unlikely-Lydia-Lopokova.html "The unlikely Lydia Lopokova"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210729091452/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3672942/The-unlikely-Lydia-Lopokova.html |date=29 July 2021 }}''The Telegraph''.</ref><ref>[[Kathryn Hughes|Hughes, Kathryn]] (19 April 2008). [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/apr/19/featuresreviews.guardianreview3 "The firebird of Gordon Square"], ''The Guardian''. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210729082250/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/apr/19/featuresreviews.guardianreview3 |date=29 July 2021 }}</ref> They were married in 1925, with Keynes's former lover [[Duncan Grant]] as best man.{{r|ES|Heilbroner nyt}} "What a marriage of beauty and brains, the fair Lopokova and John Maynard Keynes" was said at the time. Keynes later commented to Strachey that beauty and intelligence were rarely found in the same person, and that only in Duncan Grant had he found the combination.<ref>{{cite book|author=Justin Wintle|title=Makers of Modern Culture|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=991tT3wSot0C&pg=PA270|volume=1|year=2002|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0415265836|page=270|chapter=Keynes, John Maynard|access-date=18 March 2016|archive-date=15 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615024053/https://books.google.com/books?id=991tT3wSot0C&pg=PA270|url-status=live}}</ref> The union was happy, with biographer [[Peter Clarke (historian)|Peter Clarke]] writing that the marriage gave Keynes "a new focus, a new emotional stability and a sheer delight of which he never wearied".<ref name="clarke">{{Cite news|last=Mackrell|first=Judith|date=6 May 2013|title=Niall Ferguson is wrong: writing on Lopokova, Keynes' wife, I found evidence of a warm and loving relationship in which both wanted children|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/may/06/niall-ferguson-keynes-marriage-sex|access-date=28 April 2021|archive-date=28 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428150842/https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/may/06/niall-ferguson-keynes-marriage-sex|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>
{{cite web
 |access-date  = 21 November 2008
|url         = http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/keynes_jm,2.html
 |title       = Keynes, John Maynard (1883–1946)
 |publisher   = glbtq
 |url-status     = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20121002144221/http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/keynes_jm,2.html
 |archive-date = 2 October 2012
}}
</ref> The couple hoped to have children but this did not happen.<ref name="clarke"/>

Among Keynes's Bloomsbury friends, Lopokova was, at least initially, subjected to criticism for her manners, mode of conversation and supposedly humble social origins{{snd}}the last of the ostensible causes being particularly noted in the letters of [[Vanessa Bell|Vanessa]] and [[Clive Bell]], and [[Virginia Woolf]].{{r|Light}}<ref>Anand, Chandavarkar (25 August 1990). "Review: Keynes and the Celestial Dancer". "Reviewed work(s): ''Lydia and Maynard: Letters between Lydia Lopokova and Maynard Keynes'' by Polly Hill; Richard Keynes". ''Economic and Political Weekly'', Vol. '''25''', No. 34 , p. 1896</ref> In her novel ''[[Mrs Dalloway]]'' (1925), Woolf bases the character of Rezia Warren Smith on Lopokova.<ref>{{cite book|title=Lydia and Maynard: letters between Lydia Lopokova and John Maynard Keynes|url=https://archive.org/details/lydiamaynard00lydi|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/lydiamaynard00lydi/page/97 97]|publisher=André Deutsch|editor1=Polly Hill |editor1-link=Polly Hill (economist)|editor2=Richard Keynes |editor2-link=Richard Keynes|year=1989|isbn=978-0233982830}}</ref> [[E.&nbsp;M.&nbsp;Forster]] later wrote in contrition about "Lydia Keynes, whose every word should be recorded";<ref>{{cite book|title=Commonplace Book|quote=Lydia Keynes, whose every word should be recorded, said to me as I was leaving her flat the other night: 'You know I once tumbled from the stairs and believe me I paid the price.' I took the sentence down before I forgot it.|page=195|last=Forster|first=E.M. |year=1987}}</ref> "How we all used to underestimate her".<ref name="Light">{{cite magazine | first=Alison | last=Light | author-link=Alison Light | title=Lady Talky | magazine=London Review of Books | volume=30 | issue=24 | date=18 December 2008}}</ref>

Keynes had no children, and his wife outlived him by 35 years, dying in 1981.

[[File:46 Gordon Square London.jpg|thumb|upright|46 [[Gordon Square]], where Keynes often stayed while in London. Following his marriage, Keynes took out an extended lease on ''Tilton House'', a farm in the countryside near [[Brighton]], which became the couple's main home when not in the capital.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tiltonhouse.co.uk/ |title=Tilton House homepage |publisher=Tiltonhouse.co.uk |access-date=2 October 2013 |archive-date=30 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130530201803/http://www.tiltonhouse.co.uk/ |url-status=live }}</ref>]]

[[File:John Maynard Keynes 46 Gordon Square blue plaque.jpg|thumb|[[Blue plaque]], 46 Gordon Square]]

===Support for the arts===
Keynes thought that the pursuit of money for its own sake was a pathological condition, and that the proper aim of work is to provide leisure. He wanted shorter working hours and longer holidays for all.{{sfn|Davenport-Hines|2015|p={{page needed|date=January 2025}}}}

Keynes was interested in literature in general and drama in particular and supported the [[Cambridge Arts Theatre]] financially, which allowed the institution to become one of the major British stages outside London.<ref name="ES"/>

Keynes's interest in classical opera and dance led him to support the [[Royal Opera House]] at [[Covent Garden]] and the Ballet Company at [[Sadler's Wells Theatre|Sadler's Wells]]. During [[World War II|the war]], as a member of CEMA (Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts), Keynes helped secure government funds to maintain both companies while their venues were shut. Following the war, Keynes was instrumental in establishing the [[Arts Council of Great Britain]] and was its founding chairman in 1946. From the start, the two organisations that received the largest grants from the new body were the Royal Opera House and Sadler's Wells.

Keynes built up a substantial collection of fine art, including works by [[Paul Cézanne]], [[Edgar Degas]], [[Amedeo Modigliani]], [[Georges Braque]], [[Pablo Picasso]] and [[Georges Seurat]] (some of which can now be seen at the [[Fitzwilliam Museum]]).<ref name="ES"/> He enjoyed collecting books; he collected and protected many of [[Isaac Newton]]'s papers. In part on the basis of these papers, Keynes wrote of Newton as "the last of the magicians."<ref>
{{cite book
| last = Keynes
| first = John Maynard
|title=The World of Mathematics
|year=1956
|publisher=Dover
|isbn=0486411532
|edition=2000
|editor=James R. Newman
|page=277
}}</ref>

===Philosophical and spiritual views===
Keynes, like other members of the [[Bloomsbury Group]], was greatly influenced by the philosophy of [[G. E. Moore]], which in 1938 he described as "still my religion under the surface".{{sfn|Skidelsky|1992|p=408}} According to Moore, states of mind were the only valuable things in themselves, the most important being "the pleasures of human intercourse and the enjoyment of beautiful objects".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Moore|first=George Edward|title=Principia Ethica|date=2019|publisher=Forgotten Books|isbn=978-0243659753|oclc=1147825165}}</ref>{{sfn|Skidelsky|1983|p=138}} [[Virginia Woolf]]'s biographer tells an anecdote of how Virginia Woolf, Keynes and [[T. S. Eliot]] discussed religion at a dinner party, in the context of their struggle against [[Victorian era]] morality.<ref name="bell177">
{{cite book
|first=Quentin |last=Bell
|title=Virginia Woolf, A Biography
|volume= 2
|publisher=The Hogarth Press
|year=1972
|edition= revised 1996
|page= 177
|authorlink= Quentin Bell
}}
</ref>

Keynes may have been religiously [[Confirmation|confirmed]],{{sfn|Skidelsky|1983|p=[https://archive.org/details/johnmaynardkeyne0000skid_n9n5/page/86/mode/2up 86]}} but according to Cambridge University he was clearly an [[agnostic]] for all his life.<ref>
{{cite book
|last=Lubenow
|first=William C.
|authorlink = W. C. Lubenow
|title=The Cambridge Apostles, 1820–1914
|year=1998
|isbn=0521572134
|publisher=Cambridge University Press
}}
</ref> According to one biographer, "he was never able to take religion seriously, regarding it as a strange aberration of the human mind"{{sfn|Skidelsky|1983|p=[https://archive.org/details/johnmaynardkeyne0000skid_n9n5/page/86/mode/2up 86]}} but also added that he came to "value it for social and moral reasons" later in life.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Skidelsky|first=Robert|title=John Maynard Keynes |volume= 3: ''Fighting for Freedom 1937–46''|publisher=Macmillan|year=2000|isbn=0142001678|page=475}}</ref> Another biographer writes that he "broke the family faith and became a 'ferocious agnostic{{'"}} during his time at Eton.<ref>{{cite book|title=John Maynard Keynes: A Personal Biography of the Man who Revolutionized Capitalism and the Way We Live|page=33|last=Hession|first=Charles Henry|year=1984|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=978-0025513105}}</ref> One Cambridge acquaintance remembered him as "an [[Atheism|atheist]] with a devotion to King's chapel".{{r|robinson}} At Cambridge, he was strongly associated with the Cambridge Heretics Society, an avowed atheist group which promoted [[secularism]] and [[Secular humanism|humanism]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://heritage.humanists.uk/the-cambridge-heretics/|title=The Cambridge Heretics|work=Humanist Heritage|publisher=[[Humanists UK]]|access-date=30 April 2021|archive-date=2 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210802111101/https://heritage.humanists.uk/the-cambridge-heretics/|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Investments===
Keynes was ultimately a successful investor, building up a private fortune. His assets were nearly wiped out following the [[Wall Street crash of 1929]], which he did not foresee, but he soon recouped. At Keynes's death, in 1946, his net worth stood just short of £500,000{{snd}}{{Inflation|UK-GDP|500,000|1946|fmt=eq|cursign=£|r=-6}}. The sum had been amassed despite lavish support for various charities and philanthropies and despite his ethical reluctance to sell on a falling market in cases where he saw such behaviour as likely to deepen a slump.{{efn|To<!--Francis Curzon--> {{wikidata|label|Q44491887}}, his fellow director of the National Mutual, Keynes wrote in 1938: "...{{nbsp}}It is the duty of a serious investor to accept the depreciation of his holding with equanimity{{nbsp}}... any other policy is anti-social, destructive of confidence and incompatible with the working of the economic system."{{r|2003 Skidel|p=[https://archive.org/details/johnmaynardkeyne0000skid_q4f4/page/565/mode/1up 565]}} }}{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=520–521, 563–565}}

Keynes managed the endowment of [[King's College, Cambridge]] starting in the 1920s, initially with an unsuccessful strategy based on [[market timing]] but later shifting to focus in the publicly traded stock of small and medium-sized companies that paid large [[dividend]]s.<ref name="Tillinghast2017">{{cite book |last1=Tillinghast |first1=Joel |title=Big Money Thinks Small: Biases, Blind Spots, and Smarter Investing |date=2017 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0231544696 |edition=1st}}</ref> This was a controversial decision at the time, as stocks were considered high-risk and the centuries-old endowment had traditionally been invested in agricultural land and [[fixed income]] assets like bonds.<ref name="Chambers2013">{{Cite journal |last1=Chambers |first1=David |last2=Dimson |first2=Elroy |date=30 June 2013 |title=John Maynard Keynes, Investment Innovator |journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives |volume=27 |issue=30 |pages=1–18 |publisher=University of Cambridge |language=en |location=Rochester, New York |doi=10.1257/jep.27.3.213 |ssrn=2287262|doi-access=free }}</ref> Keynes was granted permission to invest a small minority of assets in stocks, and his adroit management resulted this portion of the endowment growing to become the majority of the endowment's assets.<ref name=Chambers2013/> The active component of his portfolio outperformed a British equity index by an average of 6%{{r|Tillinghast2017}} to 8% a year over a quarter century, earning him a favourable mention by later investors such as [[Warren Buffett]] and [[George Soros]].<ref>
{{cite journal
| last1 = Chambers
| first1 = David
| last2 = Dimson
| first2 = Elroy
| date =Summer 2013
| title      = Retrospectives: John Maynard Keynes, Investment Innovator
| journal    = Journal of Economic Perspectives
| publisher  = American Economic Association
| volume     = 27
| issue      = 3
| pages      = 213–228
| doi        = 10.1257/jep.27.3.213
| doi-access= free
}}
</ref>

Joel Tillinghast of [[Fidelity Investments]] describes Keynes as an early practitioner of [[value investing]], a school of thought formalised in the US by [[Benjamin Graham]] and [[David Dodd]] at [[Columbia Business School]] during the 1920s and 1930s.{{r|Tillinghast2017}} However, Keynes is believed to have developed his ideas independently.<ref name=Chambers2013/> Keynes is also regarded as a pioneer of [[diversification (finance)|financial diversification]] as he recognised the importance of holding assets with "opposed risks" as he wrote "since they are likely to move in opposite directions when there are general fluctuations";<ref name=Fisher2007/> and also as an early international investor who avoided [[Equity home bias puzzle|home country bias]] by investing substantially in stocks outside the United Kingdom.<ref>David Chambers, Elroy Dimson, Justin Foo (2015). [https://www.nber.org/chapters/c12860 Keynes, King's, and Endowment Asset Management] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180924163137/http://www.nber.org/chapters/c12860 |date=24 September 2018 }}, in ''How the Financial Crisis and Great Recession Affected Higher Education'' (2015), Jeffrey R. Brown and Caroline M. Hoxby, editors (pp. 127–150). Conference held 27–28 September 2012.</ref> [[Ken Fisher]] characterised Keynes as an exception to the rule that economists usually make horrible investors.<ref name=Fisher2007>{{cite book |last1=Fisher |first1=Kenneth L. |title=100 Minds That Made the Market |date=2007 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |location=Hoboken, New Jersey, United States |isbn= 978-0470139516 |author-link=Kenneth L. Fisher}}</ref>

Keynes joined the Board of the [[National Mutual Life Assurance Society]] in 1919 and served as chairman from 1921 to 1938. Keynes introduced a policy of active trading of fixed interest stocks, coupled with investment in equities. "Keynes was the first to give [investment trading] the seal of respectability and to apply it to a life assurance fund".{{r|city rad}}<ref>Street and Glenn, ''The National Mutual Life Assurance Society 1830-1980'', London, 1980</ref>

Olivier Accominotti and David Chambers have pointed out that Keynes did not make use of [[currency trading]] and the [[carry trade]] in his investments.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Accominotti |first1=Olivier |last2=Chambers |first2=David |date=June 2016 |title=If You're So Smart: John Maynard Keynes and Currency Speculation in the Interwar Years |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/if-youre-so-smart-john-maynard-keynes-and-currency-speculation-in-the-interwar-years/EDE2AA44C9394C69B54283D052B96B1E |journal=The Journal of Economic History |language=en |volume=76 |issue=2 |pages=342–386 |doi=10.1017/S0022050716000589 |s2cid=155280429 |issn=0022-0507}}</ref> Keynes understood the strategy however, but considered that in his time the separation of the interest rates was not sufficient to pay for the costs of transporting the capital as gold, as he explained to the [[Macmillan Committee]] of 1930.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Keynes |first=John Maynard |title=The Collected Writings |volume=XX |year=2013 |pages=181–184}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Read |first=Charles |title=Calming the Storms |date=2023 |work=Palgrave Studies in Economic History |page=289 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=978-3031119132}}</ref>

===Political life===
Keynes was a lifelong member of the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]], which until the 1920s had been one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, and as late as 1916 had often been the dominant power in government. Keynes had helped campaign for the Liberals at elections from about 1906, yet he always refused to run for office himself, despite being asked to do so on three separate occasions in 1920. From 1926, when Lloyd George became leader of the Liberals, Keynes took a major role in defining the party's economic policy, but by then the Liberals had been displaced into third-party status by the growing workers-oriented [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]].{{r|2003 Skidel|pp=380–384}}

In 1939 Keynes had the option to enter Parliament as an independent MP with the [[Cambridge University (UK Parliament constituency)|University of Cambridge seat]]. A by-election for the seat was to be held due to the illness of an elderly [[Conservative Party (UK)|Tory]], and the master of [[Magdalene College, Cambridge|Magdalene College]] had obtained agreement that none of the major parties would field a candidate if Keynes chose to stand. Keynes declined the invitation as he felt he would wield greater influence on events if he remained a free agent.<ref name="clarke"/>
{{Eugenics sidebar}}
Keynes was a proponent of [[eugenics]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Freedland|first=Jonathan|date=17 February 2012|title=Eugenics: the skeleton that rattles loudest in the left's closet |language=en-GB|work=The Guardian|access-date=15 June 2020|issn=0261-3077 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/17/eugenics-skeleton-rattles-loudest-closet-left|department=(Comment is free [opinion])}}</ref> He served as director of the [[Galton Institute|British Eugenics Society]] from 1937 to 1944. As late as 1946, shortly before his death, Keynes declared eugenics to be "the most important, significant and, I would add, genuine branch of sociology which exists."<ref>{{cite journal|author=Keynes, John Maynard|year=1946|title=The Galton lecture, 1946: Presentation of the society's gold medal|journal=Eugenics Review|volume=38|issue=1|pages=39–40|pmc=2986310|pmid=21260495|quote=On February I4th, I946, before a large gathering of Fellows, Members and guests at Manson house, London, Lord Keynes, On behalf of the Eugenics Society, presented the first Galton Medal{{nbsp}}... Opening the proceedings, Lord Keynes said: 'It is a satisfaction to take part in the presentation of the first Galton Gold Medal, both in piety to the memory of the great Galton and in recognition of a worthy and appropriate recipient of a medal established in his name.'}}</ref>

Keynes once remarked that "the youth had no religion save [[communism]] and this was worse than nothing."<ref name="bell177"/> [[Marxism]] "was founded upon nothing better than a misunderstanding of [[David Ricardo|Ricardo]]", and, given time, he (Keynes) "would deal thoroughly with the Marxists" and other economists to solve the economic problems their theories "threaten to cause".<ref name="bell177"/> In 1925, Keynes said "the class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie."<ref>{{Cite news |title=Was John Maynard Keynes a liberal? |url=https://www.economist.com/schools-brief/2018/08/18/was-john-maynard-keynes-a-liberal |access-date=2024-01-25 |newspaper=The Economist |issn=0013-0613}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Mann |first=Geoff |date=2024-01-29 |title=Socialism's Biggest Hero Is a Bourgeois British Capitalist |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/05/keynes-keynesian-socialism-biggest-hero-bourgeois-british-capitalist/ |access-date=2024-01-25 |website=Foreign Policy |language=en-US}}</ref>

In 1931 Keynes had the following to say on Leninism:<ref name="persuasion">
{{cite book
|author=Keynes, John Maynard
|title=Essays in Persuasion
|year=1931
|isbn=0393001903
|url=https://archive.org/details/essaysinpersuasi00john_1
|publisher=New York, W.W. Norton & Co.
}}</ref>{{rp|[https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.30390/page/300/mode/1up 300]}}
{{blockquote|text=How can I accept a doctrine, which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criticism, an obsolete textbook [''[[Das Kapital]]''] which I know not only to be scientifically erroneous but without interest or application to the modern world? How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish [[proletariat]] above the [[bourgeoisie]] and the [[intelligentsia]] who, with whatever faults, are the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human advancement? Even if we need a religion, how can we find it in the turbid rubbish of the red bookshop? It is hard for an educated, decent, intelligent son of Western Europe to find his ideals here, unless he has first suffered some strange and horrid process of conversion which has changed all his values.|title=[https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.30390/page/297/mode/2up "Politics §I. A Short View of Russia (1925)"] pp. 297–311
|source=''Essays in Persuasion'' (1931)}}

Keynes was a firm supporter of [[women's rights]] and in 1932 became vice-chairman of the [[MSI Reproductive Choices|Marie Stopes Society]] which provided [[birth control]] education. He also campaigned against job discrimination against women and unequal pay. He was an outspoken campaigner for reform of the [[LGBT movements|laws against homosexuality]].{{sfn|Davenport-Hines|2015|p={{page needed|date=January 2025 }} }}

===Heraldic arms===
{{Infobox COA wide
|image = [[File:Coronet of a British Baron.svg|centre|100px]] [[File:Keynes Escutcheon.png|centre|120px]]
|motto ={{ubl| ''Me Tutore Tutus Eris''| ['Under my leadership you will be safe']<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Velupillai |first1=K. Vela |title=Universal Man: A Review Article |journal=Algorithmic Social Sciences Research Unit: Discussion Paper Series |year=2016 |url=http://www.assru.org/files/DP_2_2016_I.pdf |access-date=22 January 2022 |archive-date=22 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220122163516/http://www.assru.org/files/DP_2_2016_I.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>}}
|notes = Granted 16 May 1944<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theheraldrysociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/CoA-226-ODonoghue-paper.pdf |title=The Coat of Arms No. 226 |publisher=The Heraldry Society |access-date=11 October 2019 |archive-date=11 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111041707/https://www.theheraldrysociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/CoA-226-ODonoghue-paper.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

===Death===
[[File:Tilton House.jpg|thumb|Tilton House, 2021]]

Throughout his life, Keynes worked energetically for the benefit both of the public and his friends; even when his health was poor, he laboured to sort out the finances of his old college.<ref name="JMK Ind08Nov08">{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/john-maynard-keynes-can-the-great-economist-save-the-world-994416.html |title=John Maynard Keynes: Can the great economist save the world? |access-date=20 November 2008 |work=The Independent |location=United Kingdom |first=Nick |last=Fraser |date=8 November 2008 |archive-date=28 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728201442/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/john-maynard-keynes-can-the-great-economist-save-the-world-994416.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Helping to set up the [[Bretton Woods system]], he worked to institute an [[international monetary system]] that would be beneficial for the [[world economy]]. In 1946, Keynes suffered a series of heart attacks, which ultimately proved fatal. They began during negotiations for the [[Anglo-American loan]] in [[Savannah, Georgia]], where he was trying to secure favourable terms for the United Kingdom from the United States, a process he described as "absolute hell".<ref name="50 greats">{{cite book |last=Pressman |first=Steven |authorlink=Steven Pressman (economist) |title=Fifty Major Economists |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8_mEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA99 |year=1999 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1134780822 |pages=99–104 |access-date=21 April 2017 |archive-date=15 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615010012/https://books.google.com/books?id=8_mEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA99 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Marr |first=Andrew |authorlink=Andrew Marr |title=A history of modern Britain |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CF9nAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP1 |year=2007 |publisher=Macmillan |location=London |isbn=978-1405005388 |page=12 |access-date=21 April 2017 |archive-date=15 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615001313/https://books.google.com/books?id=CF9nAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP1 |url-status=live }}</ref> A few weeks after returning from the United States, Keynes died of a heart attack at Tilton, his farmhouse home near [[Firle]], East Sussex, England, on 21 April 1946, at the age of 62.{{r|2003 Skidel|p=[https://archive.org/details/johnmaynardkeyne0000skid_q4f4/page/832/mode/2up 832]}}<ref>{{cite news |title=Lord Keynes Dies of Heart Attack. Noted Economist Exhausted by Strain of Recent Savannah Monetary Conference |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1946/04/22/archives/lord-keynes-dies-of-heart-attack-noted-economist-exhausted-by.html|work=The New York Times |date=22 April 1946 |access-date=10 February 2010 |archive-date=17 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417195235/https://www.nytimes.com/1946/04/22/archives/lord-keynes-dies-of-heart-attack-noted-economist-exhausted-by.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Against his wishes (he wanted his ashes to be deposited in the crypt at King's), his ashes were scattered on the Downs above Tilton.<ref>Wilson, Scott. ''Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons'', 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 25430). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.</ref>

Both of Keynes's parents outlived him: his father [[John Neville Keynes]] (1852–1949) by three years, and his mother [[Florence Ada Keynes]] (1861–1958) by twelve. Keynes's brother Sir [[Geoffrey Keynes]] (1887–1982) was a distinguished surgeon, scholar and bibliophile. Keynes's sister, [[Margaret Hill (social reformer)|Margaret Hill]] (1885–1970) was a prominent social reformer. His nephews include [[Richard Keynes]] (1919–2010), a physiologist, and [[Quentin Keynes]] (1921–2003), an adventurer and bibliophile. His niece, [[Polly Hill (economist)|Polly Hill]] (1914–2005), was an economic anthropologist and emeritus fellow of [[Clare Hall, Cambridge]].

== Cultural representations ==
In [[John Buchan]]'s novel [[The Island of Sheep|''Island of Sheep'']] (1936) the character of the financier Barralty is based on Keynes.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Skidelsky, Robert|title=Fighting for freedom, 1937–1946|date=2001|publisher=Viking|isbn=0670030228|page=19|oclc=49730825}}</ref>

In the film [[Wittgenstein (film)|''Wittgenstein'']] (1993), directed by [[Derek Jarman]], Keynes was played by John Quentin.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Elley|first1=Derek|date=24 February 1993|title=Wittgenstein|url=https://variety.com/1993/film/reviews/wittgenstein-1200431414/|access-date=11 October 2021|website=Variety|language=en-US|archive-date=27 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210927114022/https://variety.com/1993/film/reviews/wittgenstein-1200431414/|url-status=live}}</ref>

The docudrama ''Paris 1919'', based around [[Peacemakers (book)|Margaret MacMillan's book]], featured Paul Bandey as Keynes.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Dixon|first=Guy|date=5 January 2009|title=Paris 1919: Years in the making, 10 days to film|language=en-CA|work=The Globe and Mail|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/paris-1919-years-in-the-making-10-days-to-film/article20439644/|access-date=11 October 2021|archive-date=29 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211029174822/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/paris-1919-years-in-the-making-10-days-to-film/article20439644/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the BBC series about the Bloomsbury Group, ''[[Life in Squares]]'', Keynes was portrayed by Edmund Kingsley.<ref>{{cite news|date=28 July 2015|first=Lucy|last=Mangan|authorlink=Lucy Mangan|title=''Life in Squares'' review: 'absurd, beautiful characters in a ridiculously golden world'|url=http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/jul/28/life-in-squares-review-absurd-beautiful-characters-in-golden-world|access-date=11 October 2021|newspaper=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref>

The novel ''Mr Keynes' Revolution'' (2020) by E.J. Barnes is about Keynes's life in the 1920s.<ref>{{cite web|date=5 July 2021|title=Mr Keynes' Revolution|url=https://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/mr-keynes-revolution/|access-date=12 October 2021|first=Geoff|last=Tily|website=Prime|language=en-GB|archive-date=29 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211029173732/https://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/mr-keynes-revolution/|url-status=live}}</ref>

''Love Letters'', based on the correspondence of Keynes and Lydia Lopokova, was performed by [[Tobias Menzies]] and [[Helena Bonham Carter|Helena Bonham-Carter]] at [[Charleston Farmhouse|Charleston]] in 2021.<ref>{{Cite news|date=17 July 2021|title=The love song of J. Maynard Keynes|newspaper=The Economist|url=https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2021/07/17/the-love-song-of-j-maynard-keynes|access-date=11 October 2021|issn=0013-0613|archive-date=14 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220214204212/https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2021/07/17/the-love-song-of-j-maynard-keynes|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Publications==
===Books===
{{Div col|colwidth=30em}}
* 1913 ''Indian Currency and Finance''
* 1919 ''[[The Economic Consequences of the Peace]]''
* 1921 ''[[A Treatise on Probability]]''
* 1922 ''Revision of the Treaty''
* 1923 ''A Tract on Monetary Reform''
* 1926 ''The End of Laissez-Faire''
* 1930 ''[[A Treatise on Money]]''
* 1931 ''Essays in Persuasion''
* 1933 ''Essays in Biography''
* 1936 ''[[The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money]]''
* 1940 ''[[How to Pay for the War|How to Pay for the War: A radical plan for the Chancellor of the Exchequer]]''
* 1949 ''Two Memoirs''. Ed. by David Garnett (consists of two autobiographical essays: "[[Carl Melchior|Dr. Melchior]]: A Defeated Enemy" and "My Early Beliefs")
{{div col end}}

===Articles and pamphlets===
(A partial list.)
{{Div col|colwidth=30em}}
* 1915 ''The Economics of War in Germany'' (The Economic Journal)
* 1922 ''Inflation as a Method of Taxation'' (Manchester Guardian Commercial Reconstruction Supplement)
* 1925 ''Am I a Liberal?'' (Nation & Athenaeum)
* 1926 ''Laissez-Faire and Communism'' (New Republic)
* 1929 ''Can Lloyd George Do It?'' (Nation and Athenaeum)
* 1930 ''Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren'' (Nation and Athenaeum)
* 1930 ''The Great Slump of 1930'' (Nation and Athenæum)
* 1931 ''The End of the Gold Standard'' (Sunday Express)
* 1933 ''The Means to Prosperity'' (Macmillan and Co.)
* 1933 ''An Open Letter to President Roosevelt'' (New York Times)
* 1937 ''The General Theory of Employment'' (The Quarterly Journal of Economics)
{{div col end}}

== See also ==
{{div col}}
* {{Annotated link |Animal spirits (Keynes)}}
* {{Annotated link |Effective demand}}
* {{Annotated link |Embedded liberalism}}
* {{Annotated link |Global financial system}}
* {{Annotated link |Liberalism in the United Kingdom}}
* {{Annotated link |Keynes family}}
* {{Annotated link |Mariana Mazzucato}}
* {{Annotated link |Post-war consensus}}
* {{Annotated link |Stockholm School (economics)}}
{{div col end}}

==References==
===Notes===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name="outline">{{cite book |last1=Crowther |first1=Geoffrey |title=An Outline Of Money |date=1948 |publisher=Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd |edition=Revised |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.16802/page/n5/mode/2up}}</ref>

<ref name="ecp">{{cite book |last1=Keynes |first1=John Maynard |title=The Economic Consequences of the Peace |date=December 1919 |publisher=Macmillan & Co |edition=First |at=Ch. V: pp. 103–210; Ch. VII: pp. 236–279 |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.14117/page/n3/mode/2up|chapter=V. Reparation"; "VII. Remedies}}</ref>

<ref name="gen theory">{{cite book| last=Keynes|first=John Maynard |title=The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money |url=http://cas2.umkc.edu/economics/people/facultypages/kregel/courses/econ645/winter2011/generaltheory.pdf |date= 1936 |url-status=dead |via= The University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection |archive-date=26 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191126172202/http://cas2.umkc.edu/economics/people/facultypages/kregel/courses/econ645/winter2011/generaltheory.pdf|access-date=7 May 2021}}</ref>

<ref name="Minksky">{{cite book
| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=9eSu2F4CKNkC&q=john+maynard+keynes+minsky
| title= John Maynard Keynes|chapter=Chapter 1
| publisher= and McGraw-Hill Professional
| author= Hyman Minsky
| isbn= 978-0071593014
| year= 2008
| access-date= 5 October 2020
| archive-date= 17 April 2021
| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210417181334/https://books.google.com/books?id=9eSu2F4CKNkC&q=john+maynard+keynes+minsky
| url-status= live}}</ref>

<ref name="Moggridge">{{cite book| last=Moggridge |first=Donald Edward |title=Maynard Keynes: An Economist's Biography |date=1992 |url=https://archive.org/details/maynardkeyneseco0047mogg |url-access=registration |publisher=Routledge |location=Oxford |quote-page= 395 |isbn=978-0415051415 |quote=I again fell very much in love with her. She seemed to me perfect in every way.}}</ref>

<ref name="2003 Skidel">{{cite book |last1=Skidelsky |first1=Robert |title=John Maynard Keynes, 1883–1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman |date=2003 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0143036159 |url=https://archive.org/details/johnmaynardkeyne0000skid_q4f4/mode/2up |url-access=registration}}</ref>

<ref name="supermac">{{cite book |last1=Thorpe |first1=D.R. |title=Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan |year=2011 |publisher=Pimlico; Chatto & Windus |location=London |isbn=978-1844135417 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/supermaclifeofha0000thor/page/n5/mode/2up}}</ref>

<ref name="timeline">{{cite web|url=https://www.maynardkeynes.org/keynes-career-timeline.html|website=John Maynard Keynes|title=Timeline|access-date=26 May 2012|archive-date=2 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210702141901/http://www.maynardkeynes.org/keynes-career-timeline.html|url-status=live}}
* §"After the War: The World Bank, the IMF, and the End – 1945 to 1946" {{Cite web |url=http://www.maynardkeynes.org/john-maynard-keynes-world-bank-imf.html |title=John Maynard Keynes – Career Timeline |access-date=8 August 2025|archive-date=6 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150206052256/http://www.maynardkeynes.org/john-maynard-keynes-world-bank-imf.html |url-status=live}}</ref>
}}

===Sources===
{{Library resources box|about=yes}}
{{Refbegin}}
* [[Roger Backhouse (economist)|Backhouse, Roger E.]] and Bateman, Bradley W. (2011). ''Capitalist Revolutionary: John Maynard Keynes''.
* Barnett, Vincent (2013). ''John Maynard Keynes''. London: Routledge. {{ISBN|978-0415567695}}.
* {{cite book | author= Bateman, Bradley| year=2010 | title= The Return to Keynes | publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] | isbn=978-0674035386}}
* Beaudreau, Bernard C. (2006). ''The Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes: How the Second Industrial Revolution Passed Great Britain By''. iUniverse. {{ISBN|0595416616}}
* Blaug, Mark (September 1994). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2728608 "Recent Biographies of Keynes."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308175156/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2728608 |date=8 March 2021 }} ''[[Journal of Economic Literature]]'', vol. 32, no. 3, pp.&nbsp;1204–1215. {{JSTOR|2728608}}
* [[James M. Buchanan|Buchanan, James M.]] and [[Richard E. Wagner]] (2008). [https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/1097/0102.08_LFeBk.pdf ''Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes.''] The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 8. Indianapolis: [[Liberty Fund]].
* [[Peter Clarke (historian)|Clarke, Peter]] (2009). ''Keynes: The Twentieth Century's Most Influential Economist''. Bloomsbury. {{ISBN|978-1408803851}}
* Clarke, Peter (2009). ''Keynes: The Rise, Fall and Return of the 20th Century's Most Influential Economist'', Bloomsbury Press.
* {{cite book |last1=Davenport-Hines |first1=Richard P.T. |title=Universal Man: The Seven Lives of John Maynard Keynes |date=2015 |publisher=William Collins |isbn=978-0007519804 |author1-link=Richard Davenport-Hines}}
* [[Paul Davidson (economist)|Davidson, Paul]]. ''John Maynard Keynes'' (Great Thinkers in Economics). New York: [[Palgrave Macmillan]], 2007. {{ISBN|1403996237}}.
* {{cite book|url = http://www.library.fa.ru/files/Davidson.pdf|title = John Maynard Keynes|last = Davidson|first = Paul|publisher = Palgrave Macmillan|year = 2007|isbn = 978-0230229204|series = Great Thinkers in Economics Series|location = Basingstoke, England|authorlink = Paul Davidson (economist)|url-status = dead|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160819092531/http://library.fa.ru/files/Davidson.pdf|archive-date = 19 August 2016}}
* {{cite book |title=The Economics of John Maynard Keynes: The Theory of Monetary Economy |last=Dillard |first=Dudley |year=1948 |publisher=[[Prentice-Hall]] |isbn=978-1419128943 |page=384|title-link=The Economics of John Maynard Keynes: The Theory of Monetary Economy }}
* Dimand, Robert W. and Harald Hagemann, eds. ''The Elgar Companion to John Maynard Keynes'' (Edward Elgar, 20190 + 670 pp. [http://eh.net/?s=dimand online review]
* Harrod, R.F. (1951). ''[[The Life of John Maynard Keynes]]''. Macmillan. {{ISBN|1125395982}}.
* {{cite encyclopedia |title=John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) |url=http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Keynes.html |encyclopedia=[[The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics]] |edition=2nd |series=[[Library of Economics and Liberty]] |publisher=[[Liberty Fund]] |year=2008|isbn=978-0865976665 |editor-first=David R.|editor-last=Henderson |editor-link=David R. Henderson |pages=549–550 }}
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Keynes |editor1-first=Milo |title=Essays on John Maynard Keynes |date=1975 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=London |isbn=978-0521205344 |url=https://archive.org/details/essaysonjohnmayn0000unse_n9x6 |url-access=registration |editor-link=Milo Keynes}} {{ISBN|0521205344}}
* [[Donald Markwell|Markwell, Donald]] (2006). ''John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace''. [[Oxford University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0198292364}}.
* [[Donald Markwell|Markwell, Donald]] (2000). [http://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2000/pdf/rdp2000-04.pdf ''Keynes and Australia''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110318193831/http://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2000/pdf/rdp2000-04.pdf |date=18 March 2011 }}. [[Reserve Bank of Australia]].
* Moggridge, Donald Edward (1980). ''Keynes''. Macmillan. {{ISBN|0333295242}}.
* [[Don Patinkin|Patinkin, Don]] & J. Clark Leith, eds. (1977). ''Keynes, Cambridge and The General Theory: The Process of Criticism and Discussion Connected with the Development of The General Theory''. London: Macmillan. {{ISBN|0333227727}}.
* Patinkin, Don. "Keynes, John Maynard." In: ''[[New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics|The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, Vol. 2.]]'' Macmillan, 1987, pp.&nbsp;19–41. {{ISBN|0333372352|0935859101}}.
* {{cite book |author1=Pecchi, Lorenzo |author2=Gustavo Piga |name-list-style=amp | year=2010 | title= Revisiting Keynes | publisher=[[MIT Press]] | isbn=978-0262515115 }}
* Schuker, Stephen A. (1988). "American 'Reparations' to Germany, 1919–33." ''Princeton Studies in International Finance'', No. 61.
* Schuker, Stephen A. (2014). "J.M. Keynes and the Personal Politics of Reparations." ''Diplomacy & Statecraft'', Vol. 25, Nos. 3/4. {{doi|10.1080/09592296.2014.936197}}.
* {{cite book |last1=Skidelsky |first1=Robert |title=John Maynard Keynes: A Biography |volume=1, ''Hopes Betrayed: 1883-1920'' |date=1983 |publisher=Macmillan |location=London |isbn=978-0333115992 |url=https://archive.org/details/johnmaynardkeyne0000skid_n9n5 |url-access=registration |author-link=Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky}} Via – [https://books.google.com/books?id=CnXWAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP1 Google Books]
* {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O8UUAQAAMAAJ&pg=PP1|title=John Maynard Keynes, A Biography: The Economist as Saviour 1920–1937|last=Skidelsky |first=Robert Jacob Alexander |publisher=Penguin |date=1992 |isbn=978-0140238068 |oclc= 796052814|access-date=10 May 2017|archive-date=14 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200614224143/https://books.google.com/books?id=O8UUAQAAMAAJ&pg=PP1|url-status=live}}
* {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J9qXmQEACAAJ&pg=PP1|title=John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain, 1937–1946|last=Skidelsky|first=Robert|publisher=[[Penguin Books|Penguin]]|year=2002|isbn=978-0142001677|access-date=10 May 2017 |archive-date=15 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615044141/https://books.google.com/books?id=J9qXmQEACAAJ&pg=PP1|url-status=live}}
* {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AoL3mdHGXz4C&pg=PP1|title=Keynes: The Return of the Master|last=Skidelsky |first=Robert |publisher=[[PublicAffairs]]|year=2010 |orig-date=2009 |isbn=978-1610390033|access-date=10 May 2017|archive-date=15 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615071819/https://books.google.com/books?id=AoL3mdHGXz4C&pg=PP1|url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Skidelsky |first=Robert |title=John Maynard Keynes: 1883–1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman
|year=2003 |isbn=0330488678 |publisher=Pan MacMillan Ltd. |edition=Abridged }}
* {{cite book | last=Skidelsky | first=Robert| title=Keynes: A Very Short Introduction | year=2010 | publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] | location=[[Oxford]] | isbn=978-0199591640}}
* {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ngwwvgAACAAJ&pg=PP1|title=Lytton Strachey by Himself: A Self-portrait|last=Strachey|first=Lytton|publisher=Vintage|year=1994|isbn=978-0099459415|editor=Michael Holroyd|access-date=10 May 2017|archive-date=15 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615085050/https://books.google.com/books?id=ngwwvgAACAAJ&pg=PP1|url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |title=John Maynard Keynes |author=Syll, Lars Pålsson | publisher=SNS Förlag | year=2007 | isbn= 978-9185695270 | page=95}}
* [[Peter Temin|Temin, Peter]], and [[David Vines]] (2014). ''Keynes: Useful Economics for the World Economy''. [[MIT Press]].
* [[Nicholas Wapshott|Wapshott, Nicholas]] (2011). ''Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics''.
* {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uNYzPUhXhJYC&pg=PP1|title=The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy|last2=Stanislaw|first2=Joseph|publisher=[[Simon and Schuster]]|year=2002|isbn=978-0743229630|last1=Yergin|first1=Daniel|authorlink1=Daniel Yergin|authorlink2=Joseph Stanislaw|access-date=21 April 2017|archive-date=22 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170422131246/https://books.google.com/books?id=uNYzPUhXhJYC&pg=PP1|url-status=live}}
{{Refend}}

===Primary sources===
* {{cite book|last=Keynes|first=John Maynard|year=1998|title=The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes|edition=30 volume hardback|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|location=[[Cambridge]] |isbn=978-0521307666}}

==External links==
{{Sister project links|John Maynard Keynes|wikt=no|author=yes|v=no|n=no|b=no}}
* [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/ess_inflation.html "Keynes on Inflation"]. Extract from ''The Economic Consequences of the Peace'' by John Maynard Keynes (1919) – via [[PBS]]. {{webarchive|date=6 August 2009| url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090806025849/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/ess_inflation.html}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-maynard-keynes}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=6280| name=John Maynard Keynes}}
* {{FadedPage|id=Keynes, John Maynard|name=John Maynard Keynes|author=yes}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=John Maynard Keynes}}
* {{Librivox author |id=9726}}
* {{UK National Archives ID}}
* [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=viLe5BEAAAAJ John Maynard Keynes] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190417082157/https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=viLe5BEAAAAJ |date=17 April 2019 }} on [[Google Scholar]]
* [https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/yourcountry/collections/churchillexhibition/churchill-the-orator/gold-standard/ Churchill, Keynes & The Gold Standard – UK Parliament Living Heritage]
* [http://searcharchives.bl.uk/IAMS_VU2:IAMS037-001960873 Correspondence with John Maynard, Baron Keynes, four volumes held at The British Library]{{Dead link|date=August 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
* [https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/yourcountry/collections/paris-1919-vers/tre-of-vers/ Treaty of Versailles & Keynes – UK Parliament Living Heritage]
* {{Cite encyclopedia |title=John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) |url=http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Keynes.html |encyclopedia=[[The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics]] |edition=2nd |series=[[Library of Economics and Liberty]] |publisher=[[Liberty Fund]] |year=2008 }}

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{{John Maynard Keynes}}
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[[Category:Fellows of the British Academy]]
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[[Category:Keynes family|John Maynard]]
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[[Category:Keynesians| ]]
[[Category:English bisexual men]]
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