Re: Globalization and its Discontents

[Colin Danby <danbyc@xxxxxxx>]

I agree with Ted here.  I think Robinson also says at some point that
Keynes knew no Marx.

The obvious point to add (this has come up before on this list) is that
to someone with Keynes' deep but narrow training in English analytical
philosophy, the first volume of Capital (especially the Hegelian first
chapter !)  would be gibberish.   Ted's note that Marshall could read
Marx because he knew Kant and Hegel reinforces this point.  And in any
case the PK aspects of Marx are in the 2nd and 3rd volumes, and it
sounds from the quoted material like Keynes was only looking at Vol. 1.

I like Ted's comment that:

>>>
It seems to me that this points to one area where Keynes is much closer
to
Marx than many Marxists (and, conversely, where Marx is much closer to
Keynes than many Post Keynesians).  Neither Keynes nor Marx is a
positivist
and both hold that communities can vary significantly in the degree to
which
they "think and feel rightly".
<<<

You do see in both Keynes and Marx more recognition of historical
contingency than they are sometimes credited with, and perhaps more
flexibility in moving between models and the social-historical world.
Keynes' sociology and political science are less well worked-out, and he
lacked Marx's taste for time-consuming research, but he's like Marx in
seeing political economy as only one aspect of a larger social-science
project, such that one could not hold politics and society constant as
one worked through the impact of large economic changes.  E.g. when
Keynes describes fundamental uncertainty in 1937 he explicitly raises
the possibility of social and political change.  Much contemporary PK
prefers to hold political and social institutions constant.

Best, Colin