Mr. Keynes on the Causes of unemployment [1936]

Abstract

The indebtedness of economists to Mr. Keynes has been greatly increased by this latest addition to his series of brilliant, original, and provocative books, whose contribution to our enlightenment will prove, I am sure, to have been even greater in the long than in the short run. This book deals with almost everything, but the causes of and the future prospects of unemployment, cyclical and secular, are its central theme. It brings much new light, but its display of dialectical skill is so overwhelming that it will have probably more persuasive power than it deserves, and a concentration on the points where I think I can detect defects in the argument, though it would be unfair if presented as an appraisal of the merits of the book as a whole, may be more useful than would a catalogue-which would have to be long to be complete-of its points of outstanding intellectual achievement.