Keynes and his Battles, Gilles Dostaler,
Edward Elgar, Cheltenham (UK) and Northampton (USA), 2007, vi; 374pp
Toshiaki Hirai
I. Introduction
So far no economist has emerged able to surpass Keynes in terms of profound influence in various fields. That phenomenon of economics and social philosophy, the “Keynesian Revolution”, is the most important example of his extraordinary influence, but it does not stand alone among his achievements.
As a youth he contributed to the development of philosophy and logic under the influence of G.E. Moore and Russell. He was an intellectual leader of the Liberal Party and a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group. He was, moreover, a splendid and inexhaustible debater, celebrated among other things for his denunciation of the Versailles Treaty. His wide-ranging activities included enthusiastic patronage of the arts, managing insurance companies and taking on responsibility for the financial management of King’s College. He also played a leading part in designing the new world order after the Second World War. And, surprisingly enough, he was able to pursue many of these activities at the same time. His interests extended indefinitely and his brain could work at an extraordinary rate, fuelled with vigorous blood.
The book brilliantly analyzes and describes Keynes the human, bringing light to bear on these manifold activities, and setting out to explain Keynes’s life in terms of persistence and continuity rather than inconsistency and discontinuity. The reviewer will discuss but a few of the many thought-provoking topics (the main chapters runs as follows: Ch.2 Ethics; Ch.3 Knowledge; Ch.4 Politics; Ch.5 War and Peace; Ch.6 Money; Ch.7 Labour; Ch.8 Gold; Ch.9 Art).
II. The Apostles and the Bloomsbury Group
The apostles and the Bloomsbury Group had profound influence on Keynes’s way of thinking and, indeed, on his way of life in several respects.
Firstly, like his friends Lytton Strachey and Leonard Woolf, among others, he was greatly impressed by Moore’s ethics. This can be seen in two aspects, one in the area of Keynes’s ethics, the other in his work on probability. Starting from criticism of Ch.5 of Moore’s Principia Ethica, “Ethics in Relation to Conduct”, Keynes produced a text submitted as King’s College fellow dissertation, which was finally published in 1921 as A Treatise on Probability. The author places emphasis on uncertainty as immeasurable. (He is right, and yet according to this reviewer Keynes defines probability as a degree of rational belief between propositions which should be objective, and tries to prove induction in terms of pure logic).
Secondly, Keynes was greatly involved in the Bloomsbury Group, which generated a new culture in various fields, including literature and painting. It shared Moore’s “religion” and was anti-utilitarian and severely critical of the discrimination that women were subjected to. It was a group that fused the Apostles’ mindset with the artistic values of Post-Impressionism and the new movement in literature. The members were, in essence, individualistic liberals, exalting human relations and beauty while disregarding the social conventions. This seems to have contributed to the (miraculously) enduring friendship that bound them together throughout their lives notwithstanding their extremely complicated human and amorous relations, vividly described in the book.
III. Political Stance
From his early youth Keynes showed a great interest in politics, as demonstrated, for example, by his stance on the Boer War.
When the (First World) war broke out, Keynes was asked to join the Treasury. He accepted the invitation despite the great efforts he was making at the time for the publication of the Probability with the help of Russell and Broad. This he broke off, and consequently had to wait eight more years to see his text published.
The war was to change the world radically, and had profound repercussions for Keynes – the tension with the rest of the Bloomsbury group, his ability and confidence as high official in leading the UK in international finance, the tough tussle with the USA in negotiation, deep disappointment with the development of the Paris Peace Conference, and proposal for reconstructing Europe with the “Grand Scheme”.
In the 1920s Keynes was greatly involved in the Liberal Party through management of the Nation and Athenaeum, the Liberal Summer School, and so forth. He advocated the New Liberalism – the mid-way house between the Liberalism and Socialism. However, his political activities took a convoluted path, reflecting the political situation then reigning in the UK. He belonged to the Asquith camp, but later came to approach the side of Lloyd-George. After the fatal defeat of the Liberal Party, Keynes moved towards the Labour Party, and indeed his socio-philosophical and economic influences manifested themselves among young Labour Party politicians such as Dalton and Gaitskell, although he finally became a Liberal Party member of the House of Lords.
In the book these activities and the complicated political changes Keynes went through are brilliantly portrayed.
IV. Economics
In the reviewer’s opinion, The General Theory sees the market economy as possessing two contrasting aspects: (i) stability, certainty and simplicity; (ii) instability, uncertainty and complexity. His fundamental perception of the market economy can be summarized: “The market society is stable in the sense that it can remain in “underemployment equilibrium”, but if it goes beyond certain constraints, it becomes unstable”.
In the book reviewed aspect (ii) is stressed, while aspect (i) is somewhat overlooked. The author argues that aspect (ii) can be traced back to The Probability. The General Theory would never have won such success had it been lacking in aspect (i). Moreover, Keynes brought aspect (i) to the fore whenever he advocated economic policy.
The reviewer would have liked to see some space dedicated to Keynes’s colleagues such as Robertson and Hawtrey as economist as well as social philosopher, for Robertson and Hawtrey were not classified by Keynes as “classical economists”.
Again, the book is very readable, and a great contribution to understanding Keynes as a human being endowed with such extraordinary talents.
