Jone Maynard Keynes

    Jone Maynard Keynes stands with Adam Smith and Karl Marx as one of the world`s most influential economists. The son of a noted British  economist, Keynes amassed    a fortune through speculation in stocks and commodities. He served the British government as a financial adviser and treasury official through most of his adult life and was a key participant in the negotiations following both World Wars I and II.

     Although Adam Smith had written The Wealth of Nations about the time of the American Revolution, by the 1930s little had changed in the thinking of mainstream economists. Most would have agreed with Smith, that the best thing government could do to help the economy would be to keep its hands off. They reasoned that as long as the economy was  free to operate without interference, the forces of supply and demand would come into balance. Then, with total supply and demand in eguilibrium, everyone looking for work could find a job at the prevailing wage, and every firm could sell its products at the market price.

       But the 1930s was the  period of the Great Depression. Despite the assurannces of the classical economists, the fact was that unemployment and business failure had reached record proportions in the United States and the rest of the industrialized world. It was at this time (1936) that Keynes` General Theory transforment, Interest, and Money was published. The General theory transformed economic thinking in the 20^th century, much the way that The Wealth of Nations had in the 18^th. 

   The “someone” keynes had in mind was government. He reasoned that if for example, government spent money on public works, the income received by formerly idle workers would lead to increased demand, a resurgence of business activity and the restoration of full employment.