The Price of Peace is advertised as a biography of John Maynard Keynes, which make is surprising when Keynes dies about two-thirds of the way through. It would perhaps be more accurate to call it a biography of Keynesian economics; the final third shows how economists of all stripes absorbed Keynes' ideas.
In the early parts of the book, I felt like the author was assuming we were familiar with Keynes' thought or had read the 30 volumes of his Collected Writings. Over time, though, I grew to appreciate Carter's clear summaries and how they showed where Keynes' ideas came from and how they evolved. He always teases out their implications.
For example, I always associated Keynes with the idea that governments should run deficits during recessions as a way of stimulating the economy. That is indeed one of Keynes' innovations. The Price of Peace taught me how this principle undermined previous economic orthodoxy (by focusing on demand rather than supply), how it fits into Keynes' worldview (which tried to balance a conservative view of property rights with a liberal view of social organization), and how it has been co-opted by economic theories that differ widely from Keynes' own.
The most fundamental Keynesian idea is that markets are not naturally occurring phenomena that automatically correct themselves, but are created and managed by governments. For any given economic issue in a society, there are multiple ways to ameliorate them, each of which favors different segments of society. In other words, economics is not a neutral science or toolset but rather is inherently tied up in political questions.
Carter presents Keynes is a sympathetic light and interprets his ideas generously. His descriptions of competing frameworks seems fair even if he clearly disagrees with them. The final chapter, though, is a paean to Keynesianism as "liberal internationalism" that blames all our current woes on neoliberalism. Someday, I would like to read a more detailed book about Keynes and His Critics.
I also enjoyed how the book told the story of the World Wars from an entirely economic point of view. Nothing about the Somme but plenty about how the Allies managed the world supply of wheat and their debts to each other.
In the early parts of the book, I felt like the author was assuming we were familiar with Keynes' thought or had read the 30 volumes of his Collected Writings. Over time, though, I grew to appreciate Carter's clear summaries and how they showed where Keynes' ideas came from and how they evolved. He always teases out their implications.
For example, I always associated Keynes with the idea that governments should run deficits during recessions as a way of stimulating the economy. That is indeed one of Keynes' innovations. The Price of Peace taught me how this principle undermined previous economic orthodoxy (by focusing on demand rather than supply), how it fits into Keynes' worldview (which tried to balance a conservative view of property rights with a liberal view of social organization), and how it has been co-opted by economic theories that differ widely from Keynes' own.
The most fundamental Keynesian idea is that markets are not naturally occurring phenomena that automatically correct themselves, but are created and managed by governments. For any given economic issue in a society, there are multiple ways to ameliorate them, each of which favors different segments of society. In other words, economics is not a neutral science or toolset but rather is inherently tied up in political questions.
Carter presents Keynes is a sympathetic light and interprets his ideas generously. His descriptions of competing frameworks seems fair even if he clearly disagrees with them. The final chapter, though, is a paean to Keynesianism as "liberal internationalism" that blames all our current woes on neoliberalism. Someday, I would like to read a more detailed book about Keynes and His Critics.
I also enjoyed how the book told the story of the World Wars from an entirely economic point of view. Nothing about the Somme but plenty about how the Allies managed the world supply of wheat and their debts to each other.
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