Overlapping Research Programmes in Keynes's General Theory

Michel De Vroey

No 1994020, LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: It has often been argued that Keynes’s General Theory is full of inconsistencies yet their nature has scarcely been explored in detail. In this paper, I argue that Keynes’s basic inconsistency lies in his aiming at bringing together a series of concepts which, with hindsight, prove to be irreconciliable, namely involuntary unemployment, system failure, general equilibrium, demand policy. This indictment of Keynes’s research programme should not be extended, I further argue, to mainstream Keynesian research programmes, because they have abandonned the claim of demonstrating all these concepts together. The overall evolution of Keynesian theory can then be highlighted as a replacement of Keynes’s unique yet contradictory research programme by a handful of (a) more or less overlapping, (b) in principle consistent, (c) yet incomplete research programs against Keynes’s own project.

Pages: 23
Date: 1994-01-01
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvir:1994020

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