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Keynes as the Einstein of Economic Theory

Keynes as the Einstein of Economic Theory History of Political Economy 33:1 (2001) General Points of Connection between Keynes and Einstein The existence of a link between the General Theory and relativity theory is not a new idea. A. C. Pigou (1936, 115) suggested such a connection in his review of Keynes’s book: “Einstein actually did for Physics what Mr Keynes believes himself to have done for Economics. He developed a farreaching generalisation under which Newton’s results can be subsumed as a special case.” However, it is difficult to deny that economists have not picked up on Pigou’s observation. Although an increasing number of scholars today acknowledge the positive implications for all the social sciences of Einstein’s revolution and twentieth-century physics in general (see, e.g., Bramhall 1986, Dow 1996, Mirowski 1989, and Chick 1990), only James Galbraith ([1994] 1996) has paid sufficient attention to the relationship between Einstein and Keynes. There is no doubt that an important reason for this neglect can be found—or not found, as the case may be—in Keynes’s own writings. In the General Theory, he certaintly did not indulge in analogies between economics and the physical world, perhaps owing to his own habit of regarding the social and the natural sciences http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png History of Political Economy Duke University Press

Keynes as the Einstein of Economic Theory

History of Political Economy , Volume 33 (1) – Mar 1, 2001

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References (43)

Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2001 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0018-2702
eISSN
1527-1919
DOI
10.1215/00182702-33-1-117
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

History of Political Economy 33:1 (2001) General Points of Connection between Keynes and Einstein The existence of a link between the General Theory and relativity theory is not a new idea. A. C. Pigou (1936, 115) suggested such a connection in his review of Keynes’s book: “Einstein actually did for Physics what Mr Keynes believes himself to have done for Economics. He developed a farreaching generalisation under which Newton’s results can be subsumed as a special case.” However, it is difficult to deny that economists have not picked up on Pigou’s observation. Although an increasing number of scholars today acknowledge the positive implications for all the social sciences of Einstein’s revolution and twentieth-century physics in general (see, e.g., Bramhall 1986, Dow 1996, Mirowski 1989, and Chick 1990), only James Galbraith ([1994] 1996) has paid sufficient attention to the relationship between Einstein and Keynes. There is no doubt that an important reason for this neglect can be found—or not found, as the case may be—in Keynes’s own writings. In the General Theory, he certaintly did not indulge in analogies between economics and the physical world, perhaps owing to his own habit of regarding the social and the natural sciences

Journal

History of Political EconomyDuke University Press

Published: Mar 1, 2001

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