Britain’s 1931 protectionist shift drove Keynes to write his General Theory.
Evidence
Robbins had been impressed by the published work of Hayek and von Mises, and their influence is particularly clear in his notorious account of the depression. The American Crash of 1929 had not directly created an international depression, but it undeniably marked the end of a brief period of international economic recovery. Britain departed from the Gold Standard in September 1931 and responded to the growing crisis by electing a new national government the following month. This government proceeded to abandon free trade for protection, introducing commodity boards to promote and subsidize domestic production. These developments led Maynard Keynes to entirely recast his arguments on employment and trade, recognizing that the new policy regime could not simply be wished away. This was an important element in the drafting and composition of his 1936 General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 397
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing knowledge of Keynesian economics and 1930s British economic policy — the General Theory as a response to policy reality, not pure theory. — connects to: Keynes wrote the General Theory to save capitalism from fascism and socialism — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 2048; British austerity culminated in forced departure from the gold standard in 1931 — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 517
- SEED: An angle: how Keynesianism was itself a reactive construction of contingent policy events — the anti-neoliberal canon also owes its shape to accidents of politics.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 397
Broader Connections
- British austerity culminated in forced departure from the gold standard in 1931
#corroborates(0.85) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 517