What I’m Reading- Keynes: Return of the Master by Robert Skidelsky
So, I picked up a few books recently that I hope to finish while I’m on a glorious vacation over the next few weeks. Interestingly enough, I’m visiting the land of the man this book is based upon, John Maynard Keynes. The book, Keynes: The Return of the Master, was written by Robert Skidelsky, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. I’m excited to study Keynes a little deeper, a man who I seem to identify with, at least when it comes to a deep passion for both economics and the arts. Money quotes from the introduction so far:
-”Nor was Keynes a tax-and-spend fanatic. At the end of his life he wondered whether a government take more than 25% of the national income was a good thing. Nor did Keynes believe that all unemployment was caused by failure of aggregate demand. He was close to Milton Friedman in viewing a lot of it as due to inflexible wages and prices…”
-”Keynes was not an inflationist. He believed in stable prices, and for much of his career he thought that central governments could achieve price stability…”
-”I believe, though, that the recent crisis confirms the validity of the Keynesian ‘spending’ thesis. That is why the return of the Master is such an urgent necessity.”
And if you’re wondering who the heck is John Maynard Keynes, check this video out of Keynes and Hayek in the midst of a serious rap battle:
George Orwell’s novel “contre Stalin,” was published in 1945 and written regarding the events leading up to pre-WWII Stalinism. Orwell, being a English democratic socialist was greatly opposed to Stalinism, which he saw as merely a reformed Capitalism rather than true Marxism.