Preparing the Way

Abstract

The main task of the chapters that follow is to try to present in a simplified form the principles of what has come to be called ‘post-Keynesian’ theory. That is, the theory of growth and distribution most closely associated with the writings of Professor Joan Robinson. In addition, I want to compare and contrast her position with other Keynesian writers such as Kaldor and Pasinetti, as well as with Keynes himself. At the same time the book will try to be both positively and negatively critical, extending the possibilities of the theory by changing some of its assumptions and viewpoints. In this way, hopefully, it can be seen that the ‘post-Keynesian’ extension of Keynes’s General Theory is general in the same sense, and general in the sense of rehabilitating the Classical interests in growth and distribution as the prime concern of political economy.