A ‘Keynesian Revolution’?

Abstract

ARGUMENTS about whether or when a ‘Keynesian revolution’ took place in British economic policy in the 1940s have been bedevilled by lack of a clear definition of what such a revolution would imply. Winch [150: 281–3] was content to state that the Keynesian revolution was not limited to employment policy, but was best thought of ‘as a rational approach to the problems of economic management in general’, including price stability. Such a definition is too broad, however, unless it be conceded that Keynesian economists have a monopoly of rationality. The word ‘Keynesian’ itself has acquired too broad a meaning to be unambiguous, since it is applied to ideas of Keynes’s followers, and there has been lively debate about whether Keynes himself would have agreed with these ideas [64]. What follows is based upon the views of Keynes rather than those of his followers.