...KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS: Preamble:: As early as 1848, Karl Marx indicated the inherent weakness of uncontrolled capitalist system guided by ruthless exploitation of labour. In the then prevailing ‘Mercantilist’ system combined with the ‘Gold Standard’, country’s wealth and power was dependent on export surplus. Export prices had to be kept low by low wages. Marx argued that creating supply while not creating purchasing power would lead to creation of ‘surplus value’. Economies would experience excess production, stock piling, down turn and periodic unemployment. Over time, the down turn would get worse. For labour, having a job or being unemployed made little difference. Marx believed that periodic recession and crisis of capitalism would lead to the self destruction of the system and its eventual downfall. He called on labour to revolt. ‘You have nothing to lose but your chains’ he said. His clarion call was ‘workers of the world unite’. It is an irony of history that Marx, a great philosopher, proved to be poor prophet, precisely because of his own advocacy. Had Marx not said what he did say, his prophecies would have come true. His ideas resulted in significant system reforms in Britain. Publication of Marx’s Communist Manifesto in 1948 put the British society and polity on guard. In 1850s British Parliament enacted a number of laws aimed at labour reforms. Trade Unions were recognized. Minimum wages were instituted. Limitations were prescribed on hours of work,...
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...Keynesian Economics, Helping the US Economy Keynesian philosophy states that in order to manage economic downturns, government intervention in the economy is imperative. It was Keynesian Economic Philosophy that kept America out of another depression during the Great Recession due to the fiscal and monetary stimulus (Seidman 32-53, 22p). By examining the government’s need for spending money on welfare, cutting taxes, regulating and monitoring the financial markets, and government spending on military, America sees how a Keynesian approach is a necessity. The American Government needs to continue using the Keynesian model in order to enhance the performance of the economy. Keynesian Philosophy provides government assisted programs to those who qualify. One form of assistance is Welfare. Welfare provides benefits and economic assistance to low or no income Americans. With the dismal economy, there are now over 100 million people on welfare according to the Census Bureau; and this doesn’t include those receiving Social Security or Medicare (GOPUSAStaff). Food Stamps are one of many divisions of welfare. The food stamps program, also known as the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), helps low or no income citizens buy food. There are over 46 million people on SNAP as of June, 2012 (Luhby). That is more than one in seven Americans and more than 25% of eligible Americans do not participate in the food stamps program. There are millions of low-income seniors struggling...
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...John Maynard Keynes’ influence and ideology Even today John M. Keynes’ ideas remain crucial to the most important debate of our time: how can we escape from the economic crisis? Should governments borrow and spend their way out of trouble or slash spending and reduce the national debt? Despite Keynes’ avid support for the free market, his theory is one strongly based on the mixed-market economy. “Keynes said it was possible for governments to come in and make markets work better... Keynes saved capitalism from the capitalists.” - Prof. Joseph Stiglitz Keynes’ theory opposed Adam Smith’s metaphor of “the invisible hand” – which envisages a self-correcting economy, in the form of the self-regulating behaviour of the market - due to individuals' efforts to maximize their own gains in a free market which benefits society, even if original ambitions include no benevolent intentions. Instead Keynes said that capitalism doesn’t always work on its own accord, but that government intervention is sometimes necessary (especially during periods of recession – which Keynesians see as an “economic malady” rather than a normal part of the business/trade cycle. Keynesian theory in modern macro-economics Alistair Darling MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 2007-2010 – “The dominant thinking in Europe at the moment is exactly repeating the mistakes (I believe) that were made at the end of the First World War”. This statement was made...
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...Virtual Economy Home page Keynesians - Introduction Keynesian economists are, not surprisingly, so named because they are advocates of the work of John Maynard Keynes (if only all economics was that easy!). Much of his work took place at the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s, and perhaps his best known work was the 'General Theory of Employment, Interest & Money' which was published in 1936. In this section we look more generally at the work of Keynesian economists. Follow the links below or at the foot of the page to find out more detail about what they believed in and the policies they proposed. * Beliefs * Theories * AS & AD * Policies * Virtual Economy policies Keynesians - Beliefs Keynes didn't agree with the Classical economists!! In fact the easiest way to look at Keynesian theory is to see the arguments he gave for Classical theory being wrong. In essence Keynes argued that markets would not automatically lead to full-employment equilibrium, but in fact the economy could settle in equilibrium at any level of unemployment. This meant that Classical policies of non-intervention would not work. The economy would need prodding if it was to head in the right direction, and this meant active intervention by the government to manage the level of demand. Follow the links in the navigation bar at the foot of the page or in the side panel to find out more detail on the sort of policies this may involve. Keynesian beliefs can be illustrated...
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...Review of Keynesian Economics, Inaugural Issue, Autumn 2012, pp. 1–4 Statement of the Co-Editors Economics and the economic crisis: the case for change It is widely recognized that economic crises can sometimes trigger enormous change, with regard to both economic theory and the politics of governance. Today, the global economy is struggling with the fall-out from the financial crash of 2008 and the Great Recession of 2007–2009. The economic crisis that these events have generated, combined with the failure of the mainstream economics profession, has again put the question of change on the table. The economics profession stands significantly discredited owing to its failure to foresee the recession and the financial crash, its repeated over-optimistic forecasts of rapid recovery, and the lack of plausibility surrounding its attempts to explain events. Reasonable people do not expect economists to predict the daily movements of the stock market, but they do expect them to anticipate and explain major imminent economic developments. On that score, the profession failed catastrophically, revealing fundamental theoretical inadequacies. This intellectual failure has prompted us to launch the Review of Keynesian Economics. At a time of journal proliferation, some may wonder about the need for another journal. We would respond there is a proliferation of journals, but that proliferation is essentially within one intellectual paradigm. As such, it obscures the fact that the range...
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...Who was Keynes and what were his ideas? John Maynard Keynes, born in 1883, is considered to be one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. He was most prominent during the Great Depression in the 1930s when he tried to create an economical revolution in economic thinking with his ideas of intervention in markets. The idea is also generally; that in the short run productive activity is very much influenced by aggregate demand, (aggregate demand is the total spending in the economy with the equation; Consumption + Investment + Government Expenditure + (Exports - Imports)) and that aggregate demand does not equal the productive capacity of the economy. Keynes believed strongly that Government Intervention would strongly help the economy to succeed and grow. His three main argument points concerning the Government were : The Government has a role to play in moderating the business cycle. Government can use short term monetary policy to engineer the economy. During economic hardship the government should spend to try and 'spur' on economic growth. In the second point I mentioned monetary policy, but what is it? It involves changes in the base rate of interest to influence the growth of aggregate demand, the money supply and price inflation. A short goal would be set for the economy to achieve this by changing the base rate. If the economy is doing well, the government should stop spending money, or spend less, but if the economy is bombing, the government...
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...Homework 3 * Explain differences between Keynesian and Classical Economics. The differences between Keynesian and Classical Economics are as follows: Keynesian economics believe that when the economy is in a recession that price and wage remain the same and are inflexible. Wages are unable to be lowered beyond a certain point due to union contracts and minimum wage laws and will not be raised due to the supply of unemployed workers willing to work at the prevailing wages and the price of goods remain fixed due to steady supply and no change in demand. In order to jump start the economy Keynesian economics suggest that increased government spending will increase the GDP thereby shifting the aggregate demand curve which can help jumpstart the economy by creating more demand and resulting in the demand for labor to meet that demand. The classical economics viewpoint is that the economy will self-regulate over time and the government should take hands off approach. They believe that price and wage will remain flexible and increase or decrease as needed to maintain equilibrium in the economy. * In your opinion when (if ever) should the government use Keynesian economic policy? I believe the government should follow the Keynesian economic policy in times of recession such as they did in the most recent one in 2009. The Keynesian policy will help increase the aggregate demand by raising the GDP which will create the need for workers to meet that demand. This helps...
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...justification. I will be critiquing the application of Keynes’ theory from the Austrian, specifically the works of Friedrich A. Hayek, and Monetarist perspectives, supported by arguments given by Milton Friedman. Section 1: Keynes’ Theory on Government Spending John Maynard Keynes published his famous work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, in 1936, during the Great Depression. Economies all over the world were suffering severely from the Great Depression, and there was little hope of economic recovery in the near future. Keynes agreed with the classical economist’s notion that the economy would correct itself in the long run, but was famously quoted, “In the long run we will all be dead,” which perfectly reflects people’s growing doubt in their economies during the Great Depression. Motivated by this belief Keynes, a British economist, challenged Classical economic thought, which was the mainstream economic theory at the time, “…[C]lassical economics offered...
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...How the economic problems would be approached by Keynesian economists? For the inflation uncomfortably high in Indian economy, the government must create incentives for the population to spend money, such as tax rebates, lower interest rates, and reward systems. The government should step in to increase spending, either by increasing the money supply or by actually buying things itself. Keynesian economists believe that cutting of taxes is an important to increase demand for good. Tax essentially makes goods more expensive. Therefore cutting tax on goods and services means that they will become cheaper. Because people want goods for as low a price as they can get in order to be able to buy other goods they will demand more of a good if it costs less for them to buy it with their disposable income. Essentially, consumer confidence has increased as they are getting more for their money. Keynes believed that the best way to grow an economy was to instil confidence in the consumer, this would lead to more demand and more being produced. The fiscal deficit is a situation in which the approved expenditures of a government entity are more than the amount of revenue that is generated by that same entity. In Keynesian economics, a situation of this type is not necessarily viewed as a bad thing. In fact, a fiscal deficit can be used to help stimulate the economy and help to lift a nation out of a period of recession. The government should set a goal to balanced budget where actual...
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...Critique of Classical Theory & The Rise of Keynesian Theory Classical Economic Theory Classical theory of economics states that a free market economy is self-regulating and that with full employment, the economy would reach equilibrium. The classical theory is fundamentally based on the Say's Law which states that "Supply creates its own Demand". This also made the classical economists believe that there was nothing to prevent an economy from growing and hence attaining a state of full employment. This would be achievable as long as employees are willing to work for a wage that was no more than their productivity and in this situation, the profit-seeking businesses would want to employ everyone. According to the Classical economists, full employment of real GDP stays the same regardless of the price level. During a recession or a depression, the aggregate demand in the economy would fall and in the current price levels, consumption reduces and thus there would be an excess of goods in the market. This excess supply would result in the fall of the prices as well as wage rates and hence go back to the state of equilibrium. The Great Depression & critique on the classical economic theory But this theory was proven wrong by the Great Depression as it was seen that when output is below the full employment level, price levels did not fall because wages and resource prices did not fall as they were sticky. In order to have more employees, the employers needed to earn...
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...What is the relationship between social policy and economic policy? (Your answer must refer to Keynesian and Monetarist economic ideas in relation to welfare Trying to explain the relationship between social and economic policy can be seen as quite a complex task. But, if you look at the wider picture it can be said to become quite easy to see if the two go well together and how they intertwine with eachother to benefit the welfare state. In order to go further and try to explain the relationship between social and economic policy, it is best to make sense of what exactly is meant by economic policy and to take a look at the different types of economic policy which helps to shape the welfare state. It is a government policy for maintaining economic growth and tax revenues. Alcock et all. (2012) explains ecenomic policy as government activites in the economic field focused on certain activites and topics. Some of these topics consist of securing economic growth, meaning the production of more services in the economy and the promotion of the manufacturing industry with tax benefits and grants. Managing the rates of employment through employment agencies also fits into one of the topics as well as using taxation policies to redistrubute income, property and wealth between different social groups. Taking these topics and interventions into consideration, the relationship between social and econoimic policy can be difficult to explain as in this certain case they...
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...Essay Which of the two major approaches to Economic policy (Keynesian or Classical) will lead the USA out of the economic crisis faster? What are two differences between those two types of economic policies? This topic is very much of current interest because the U.S. economy is having quite a hard time these days. In order to properly review the problem I believe it is important to look deeper into the economic crisis of the United States. The problem with the US economy is very complex. One of the key problems lies in the huge public debt that accounts for $ 14,710,435,135,562,26 as of September 19, 2011. The problem with an enormous public debt of the U.S. is accompanied by the expansion of government spending which takes place at an exponential rate. The federal spending is almost 18 times higher than it was back in 1970. The third outstanding aspect is the huge amount of unemployed labor in the United States. The unemployment rate as of September 19, 2011 exceeds the 10% mark. The other sides of the critical economic situation include high levels of inflation and household debt and the following decrease in purchasing power of the population. The governmental bodies usually exploit one of the two major approaches to Economic policy. These include the Classical and the Keynesian approaches. The Classical economics theory employed the idea of economic liberalism which included the notion that economic laws are similar to the laws of nature. The action of these laws...
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...term business cycle (or economic cycle or boom-bust cycle) refers to economy-wide fluctuations in production, trade and economic activity in general over several months or years in an economy organized on free-enterprise principles. The business cycle is the upward and downward movements of levels of GDP (gross domestic product) and refers to the period of expansions and contractions in the level of economic activities (business fluctuations) around its long-term growth trend. These fluctuations occur around a long-term growth trend, and typically involve shifts over time between periods of relatively rapid economic growth (an expansion or boom), and periods of relative stagnation or decline (a contraction or recession).Business cycles are usually measured by considering the growth rate of real gross domestic product. Despite being termed cycles, these fluctuations in economic activity can prove unpredictable. History A BASIC ILLUSTRATION OF ECONOMY/BUSINESS CIRCLE. Theory The first systematic exposition of periodic economic crises, in opposition to the existing theory of economic equilibrium, was the 1819 Nouveaux Principes d'économie politique by Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi. Prior to that point classical economics had either denied the existence of business cycles, blamed them on external factors, notably war, or only studied the long term. Sismondi found vindication in the Panic of 1825, which was the first unarguably international economic crisis, occurring in peacetime...
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...1883. His father was an economics professor at Cambridge. son of a Cambridge economics professor If ever there was a rock star of economics, it would be John Maynard Keynes. Keynes shares his birthday, June 5th, with Adam Smith and he was born in 1883, the year communist founder Karl Marx died. With these auspicious signs, Keynes seemed to be destined to become a powerful free market force when the world was facing a serious choice between communism or capitalism. Instead, he offered a third way, which turned the world of economics upside down. In this article, we'll examine Keynes' doctrine and its impact. (To read about Adam Smith, be sure to check out Adam Smith: The Father Of Economics.) Keynes was ultimately a successful investor, building up a private fortune. His assets were nearly wiped out following the Stock Market Crash of 1929, which he failed to foresee, but he soon recouped. At Keynes's death, in 1946, his worth stood just short of £500,000 – equivalent to about £11 million ($16.5 million) in 2009. His first prediction was a critique of the reparation payments that were levied against the defeated Germany after WWI. Keynes rightly pointed out that having to pay out the cost of the entire war would force Germany into hyperinflation and have negative consequences all over Europe. He followed this up by predicting that a return to the prewar fixed exchange rate sought by the chancellor of the exchequer, Winston Churchill, would choke off economic growth and reduce real...
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...While researching, I ran across a small article titled A Review Of Keynesian Theory. This particular article is an overall review of Keynes theories of economics as well as arguments against his philosophy. The website intertwines the Great Depression with its causes and solutions which include controversies on which solutions were successful or failures. I’ve chosen the section in our text covering the Great Depression and the Keynesian Revolution found in Chapter 33 because it correlates with my career as a high school Social Studies teacher. Usually with constraints of time and curriculum to cover, I can teach significant events in history but there are topics that I would love to divulge a little more time and understanding to not only to teach of course, but also for my own learning. Keynesian economics is one of those topics. I discuss with my classes the basics of Keynes theories and how they were applied as well as points of success, but it is difficult to go much further than that. To summarize what I learned between our text and A Review of Keynesian Theory, Keynesian economics worked at the macroeconomic level. The theories stated that the trends at the macro-level could overpower individuals and their actions at the micro-level. It emphasized the significance of the aggregate demand for goods in driving the economy, especially economies in a slump. It was based on this that Keynes advocated the idea of government intervention through policies that could fight...
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