The General Theory by John Maynard Keynes (1936)
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Note on the Electronic Edition of The General Theory

Edition

This is an electronic version of the John Maynard Keynes's famous treatise, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, which was originally published in 1936 in London by the Macmillan Press and in New York by the St. Martin's Press.

This electronic edition has been adapted from the Harbinger edition, printed in 1964 by Harcourt, Brace & World, New York.   By our understanding, this 1964 edition replicates exactly the formatting (and emendations) of the 1936 English reprint of the original 1936 edition.  Page numbers in bold square brackets, e.g. [p.123], denotes the particular point in the 1964 edition where that particular page begins.  Page numbers in regular brackets, e.g. (p.123), are page notes inserted by J.M. Keynes himself.  Footnotes and footnote numbers are precisely as in the 1964 edition.    

The only modifications we have made to the formatting is in the mathematical notation, e.g. we write W·f(N) instead of W.f(N).  Otherwise, all formatting is left intact as in the original 1964 edition.   

Frills from the HET Website

We have taken the liberty of hyperlinking chapter references to each other and hyperlinking the names of schools of thought and individual economists referred to in the text to their respective profiles on the History of Economic Thought Website and referenced texts to their electronic versions (where available on the world wide web). 

We have included the original index and linked page numbers to their location in the text: Index A-K and Index L-Z

We have also set up a search engine specific to this text. 

For more information on the context, reception and impact of Keynes's General Theory, see our review of the Keynesian Revolution.

Note on "classical" and "neo-classical":  Keynes uses the terms "classical" and "neo-classical" a bit differently from the HET Website's classification of "schools of thought".  More precisely, Keynes uses the term "the classical school" to refer not only to the Classical Ricardian economists, but also to certain Neoclassical economists, such as those of the Marshallian and Lausanne schools.  However, on p.177 of the General Theory, Keynes refers to a mysterious "neo-classical" school, whom he differentiates from the "classical" on the basis of their belief that "saving and investment can be actually unequal" (1936: p.177), i.e. for Keynes, the difference between "classical" and "neo-classical" boils down to those who do and who do not adhere to Say's Law of Markets.  Thus, for Keynes, the "neo-classical" school would probably include Knut Wicksell and  the Stockholm School, R.G. Hawtrey, D.H. Robertson, F.A. Hayek and himself.  

Corrections

In Appendix I (p.385) of the Royal Economic Society's The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes: Vol. VII, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, published in 1973 by Macmillan and the Cambridge University Press, the following printing errors in the 1964 edition were noted by the editor, Donald Moggridge:

We have decided to adopt all these 1973 corrections (but one) in the electronic version of the text (the exception is on p.341; we have decided to retain the original expression).  We will alert the reader to the 1973 emendations by the placing the flag [RES] at the point of correction in the text.

We have spotted (and corrected) the following additional typographical errors in the 1964 edition:

This is noted in the text by the flag [HET].

Additional Writings

The 1973 Collected Writings edition also includes two of John Maynard Keynes's later papers as appendices.  Specifically, the following two:

• "Fluctuations in Net Investment in the United States", 1936, Economic Journal

•  "Relative Movements of Real Wages and Output" 1939, Economic Journal (response to Dunlop and Tarshis)

were added Appendices II and III, respectively, to the 1973 edition of the General Theory.  According to Moggridge, these papers "deal with errors on pages 103-4 and 9-10 respectively of the [General Theory] text itself" (Editorial Introduction, CW of JMK: vol. VII, 1973: p.xix).  

Also elucidatory of the General Theory (although not included in the 1973 edition) are the following articles by John Maynard Keynes:

• "The General Theory of Employment", 1937, Quarterly Journal of Economics. (response to Viner)

• "Alternative Theories of the Rate of Interest", 1937,  Economic Journal (response to Ohlin and Robertson)

• "The Ex Ante Theory of the Rate of Interest", 1937, Economic Journal (response to Ohlin and Robertson) 

The 1973 edition also contains translations of J.M. Keynes's prefaces to the German, Japanese and French editions of The General Theory, which, for copyright reasons, we cannot include here.

If you are accessing this electronic version from a country in which this book is still under copyright protection, please leave now.  By proceeding to the text, the reader is certifying that he is indeed in compliance. 

All comments and corrections on this text are encouraged and can be addressed to hetwebsite@hotmail.com.

The Editors,
The History of Economic Thought Website,
http://homepage.newschool.edu/het/
hetwebsite@hotmail.com

 

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