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Article: Ricardo and Keynes on war finance.
- Article from:
- Atlantic Economic Journal
- Article date:
- September 1, 1989
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1989 Atlantic Economic Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Ricardo and Keynes on War Finance
I. Introduction
Tradition has placed David Ricardo and J.M. Keynes at opposite poles in the history of monetary theory. In the General Theory, Keynes focused much of his criticism of classical economics on Ricardo, because the Ricardian tradition had dominated theory and policy for over a century [Keynes, 1936, VIII, p. 32; henceforth cited as JMK]: "Ricardo conquered England as completely as the Holy Inquisition conquered Spain." The General Theory was written during the Great Depression, when economists were primarily concerned with the problems of massive unemployment and idle industrial capacity. However, ...