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After the stock market crash in 1929, Keynes felt that unrestricted financial capitalism was heavily flawed and advocated for government intervention in the economy to curb unemployment and economic recessions. This theory during the 1930's was not popular at all with various sources of criticism such as from the Austrian School of economics, the Chicago school of economics and various economic schools. This is with one of the major criticisms which was that booms and recessions were normal for the economy and that having large amounts of government intervention would only worsen the recovery process. One of his biggest rivals was Milton Friedman who was a big advocate for free market spending and dominated economic thinking for the second half of the 20th Century. Eventually during the onset of world war 2 and after that governments took good care of applying keynesian economics.

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Keynes Society. (n.d.). [Keynes Society Blog]. WordPress. https://keynessociety.wordpress.com/

University of Kent. (n.d.). Keynes Centre. https://www.kent.ac.uk/keynescentre/

Library of Economics and Liberty. (n.d.). Keynesian Economics. https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/KeynesianEconomics.html

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. (2016, Fall). John Maynard Keynes: His Life and Legacy. Inside the Vault. https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/inside-the-vault/fall-2016/john-maynard-keynes-his-life-and-legacy

Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). John Maynard Keynes. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Maynard-Keynes

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The Guardian. (2015, March 5). Seven Things You Probably Didn’t Know about John Maynard Keynes. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/05/seven-things-john-maynard-keynes

History of Economic Thought Website. (n.d.). [Homepage]. https://www.hetwebsite.net/

Investopedia. (n.d.). John Maynard Keynes. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/j/john-maynard-keynes.asp

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IMF (International Monetary Fund). (2014, September). What Is Keynesian Economics? - Back to Basics - Finance & Development. Retrieved from https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2014/09/basics.htm#:

Investopedia. (n.d.). John Maynard Keynes. In Investopedia. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/j/john_maynard_keynes.asp

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I published my first book, "Indian Currency and Finance" in 1908, which explored the intricacies of India's monetary system. This then started my academic career in economics. I then continued to research and write about different economic topics, eventually leading me to write my most famous publication in 1936, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. This paper stimulated the world to revolutionize economic thinking and developed the foundation for modern macroeconomics. This publication was especially impactful during the Great Depression in 1929-39 and, thus, spread the popularity of Keynesian economics at a time of prolonged economic difficulty.

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Hello, I am John Maynard Keynes, one of the most influential economists from the 19th to 20th century.

I was born on June 5, 1883, in Cambridge, England, to an academic family deeply involved with economics and social policy. My father, John Neville Keynes, was an economist and lecturer, and my mother, Florence Ada Keynes, was a local politician and social reformer. That's why I was exposed to different arguments and discussions concerning economics and the real world, which have shaped my understanding of economics and later stimulated my economic thoughts.

I was educated at Eton College, then went to King's College, Cambridge, to learn mathematics. After completing my degree, I worked for a little while in the Civil Service before returning to Cambridge as a professor in economics, which made me develop my enthusiasm for economics and began to deepen my thinking.

I have actively participated in numerous business groups and institutions during my career. I participated in the British delegation for the Treaty of Versailles. At the same time, I was a member of the delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference following World War I. I fervently supported global economic cooperation and believed economic cooperation and regulations were essential to prevent future wars.

My career as a businessman and investor was successful in addition to my academic endeavours. I managed my investments with a partner in a prosperous investment firm, which allowed me to build up my fortune over time.

However, my economic thoughts and policy proposals, which went against the conventional understanding of classical economics, have long been my most enduring contribution to the world. I argued that counter-cyclical policy and governmental intervention are necessary when the free market fails to revive economic growth and produce full employment. Through appropriate monetary and fiscal policy adjustments, governments could successfully minimize economic turbulence, maintain economic stability, boost growth, and produce full employment. My concepts established the foundation for the popularity and implementation of Keynesian economics in the real world, which evolved into a pillar of contemporary economic policy-making during economic downturns and recessions.

Despite my contributions to economics, I couldn’t avoid criticisms and was always involved in debates about my economic thoughts. My views on government intervention were not always well-liked by free-market economists and policymakers, and my proposals were not always accepted by Monetarist and Supply-side economists. Nevertheless, economists and policymakers worldwide are still studying and discussing my works, and my policy proposals have been well implemented during economic difficulties and recessions.

I left the world in Firle, Sussex, on April 21, 1946, leaving a significant economic legacy behind. My thoughts still shape our knowledge of how governments should address economic difficulties and promote economic prosperity and full employment.

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When John Maynard Keynes first went to Cambridge, he was influenced by renowned economist Alfred Marshall, who helped Keynes shift his academic interests from mathematics and classical literature to economics and politics. Cambridge also introduced him to The Society, a famous group of writers and artists centred around Cambridge.

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The main idea that John Maynard Keynes developed is the Keynesian economics theory. The theory's main point is to argue that boosting aggregated or effective demand and cutting taxes - via the effect on government spending, household consumption, and business investment - is the main driving force for reviving economic growth to produce full employment at times of economic difficulty. He argues that, at times of failure in the free-market system as advocated by Classical theorists, government invention is a necessary evil to stimulate economic growth and maintain economic prosperity and employment for all.

During economic recessions, Keynesian economists argue that consumers would lose confidence and spend less, resulting in reduced production and investment by companies. In this circumstance, government invention through increased spending and tax reductions is crucial to prevent the economy from spiralling down. As the economy revives and more jobs are created, the government can cut spending and resume higher tax rates. This comes back to Keynes's central argument that government intervention is needed to control the booms and busts of the economy.

There are five principal parts of the Keynesian theory.

1: Economic decisions in both the public and private sectors influence aggregate demand in the economy. It argues that changes in private sector sentiment and expectation could create adverse effects on the economy, so government intervention and policies would offset it and maintain economic stability.

2: Prices of goods and services and wages react slowly to changes in both supply and demand. This results in periodic shortages and surpluses of products and labour supply and demand conditions.  Government intervention could smooth the economic and inflation cycles and prevent sharp fluctuations in economic activity.

3: Changes in demand, whether expected or not, have a more significant effect on output and employment than price changes. Keynesians argue that prices are somewhat rigid; fluctuations in spending cause a production change. If one part of spending increases with all others remaining constant, it causes the output to increase. A ‘multiplier effect’ will also kick in if there is a dollar increase in spending; the resultant impact on the overall economy will be much more significant than the initial spending and, thus, result in more income, spending, investment, and job creation. It will become a virtuous cycle of spending and investment to sustain economic growth.

4: Liquidity preference theory.  Keynes argued that interest rates are determined by supply and demand for money. So, people would hold money for transactional purposes, precautionary reasons, and speculative motives. This speculative motive refers to the desire to hold cash until interest rates become more favourable for consumption and investment. (i.e., people will have less incentive to put money in the bank when interest rates decline. As such, households and companies will have more incentive to spend and invest).

5. The Role of Uncertainty and "Animal Spirits"

Keynes emphasises the importance of uncertainty and psychological factors in economic decision-making. He famously coined the term "animal spirits" to refer to the human emotions (optimism, confidence, cautiousness, fear, and greed) influencing economic outcomes. He argued that these animal spirits often drive changes in economic activity, leading to unpredictable economic fluctuations (e.g., all the speculative emotions affecting the sharp rise and fall of bitcoins, stock markets, and actual investment in the economy – such as investment in the housing market, speculation of the following renewable energies, AI technology and memory chip products etc.). As such, the government’s role in offsetting economic fluctuations caused by the private sector is crucial.

Keynesian economics also advocates countercyclical fiscal policies to stabilize economic and business cycles. Keynes also suggested that governments should act more in the short term than focusing on the long time. He famously said we were all dead in the long term and should concentrate more in the short term.

Popularity of Keynesian Economics: After the stock market crash in 1929, Keynes felt that unrestricted financial capitalism was heavily flawed and advocated for government intervention to curb unemployment and economic recessions. This theory during the 1930s was not popular with various sources of criticism, especially from the Austrian School of Economics (Supply-Side Economics) and the Chicago school of Economics (Monetarist theorists). The critics argued that booms and bursts of the economic cycle were everyday phenomena and that having large amounts of government intervention would only worsen the recovery process. One of his most prominent critics was the architecture of Monetarist theory Milton Friedman. He was a big advocate for a free market economy and a dominant economic thinker during the second half of the 20th Century. Nevertheless, Keynesian economic policies remained popular and widely used in the post-WW2 era. The most recent examples are the fiscal stimulus adopted during the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 and the global economic downturn caused by Covid-19 in 2020-22.

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John Maynard Keynes. (2017, May 25). St Faith’s School. https://www.stfaiths.co.uk/profile/john-maynard-keynes/