Blogging Keynes’ General Theory: Chapter 1

It’s really unnecessary to say that there’s been a revival of interest in John Maynard Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in recent days.  The trouble is that the level of public discourse on Keynes has basically been something along the lines of “Keynes wrote about bad times, we’re in bad times, so Keynes’ theories must be right”.  The revived Keynesianism often seems to amount to no more than a blanket call for government spending, in many cases a call made by people who always seem to be able to find some reason or other for governments to spend more.  In bad times it’s to pull us out of recession, in good times it’s to stimulate growth and ensure social justice (especially if accompanied by taxes on dis-favoured groups).  In any event, this seems like a good time to take a look at what Keynes actually said in the General Theory, if only because there seems to be a certain disconnect between what some people think he said and what he actually said.