Money, Banks and Finance in Economic Thought

Early reactions to the Keynes plan: The radical criticisms from Schumacher, Balogh and Kalecki

Faudot Adrien, CREG, Université Grenoble Alpes
Beretta Edoardo, Università della Svizzera italiana / Franklin University Switzerland

The Keynes plan (1941) was considered upon its release, thanks to the international prestige of the British economist as well as the cleverness of his proposal, as particularly worthy of interest. If (as expected) economists embracing orthodox views on money criticized the plan, less known criticisms came from the Keynesian circles. Several former close collaborators of J. M. Keynes offered comments and asked for amendments to his draft plan as well as for improvement of the scheme of the Clearing Union, which the British economist wanted to design. In the light of the aforesaid the following paper analyses the publications of Ernst F. Schumacher, Thomas Balogh, and Michal Kalecki appeared right after the Keynes plan. In fact, these authors provided early as well as radical judgements anticipating some faults in Keynes’ proposal and targeting the sustainability of an effective Clearing Union.

Area:

Keywords: Keynes, Clearing Union, Balogh, Kalecki, Schumacher

Please Login in order to download this file