There Is Nothing Natural About “the Market”
After his death, the followers of economist John Maynard Keynes embraced the myth of a “natural” market economy that required “intervention” from the government to keep it stable. But there is nothing natural about the market — and the Keynesians’ mistake led to a withering of the radical potential of Keynes’s ideas.
A medical worker stands at the entrance to the New York Stock Exchange on the first day that traders are allowed back onto the historic floor, on May 26, 2020 in New York City. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)
I just finished reading Zachary Carter’s book The Price of Peace, and I will agree with the general assessment. It is an outstanding book that brings together much useful material on the life and influence of John Maynard Keynes.
While I am of course familiar with Keynes’s history and the history of Keynesianism, there is much that I learned here. In particular, I am impressed with the importance he gives Joan Robinson in spreading the ideas of Keynes, especially to followers from the United States.
When I first started taking economics, I hugely appreciated Robinson’s writing. She both did very important analytic work, especially her pathbreaking analysis of imperfect competition, but was also tremendously witty in her popular writing. I will always remember her great comment on unemployment (paraphrasing): “The only thing worse than being exploited by capital is not being exploited by capital.”
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