What is economics all about?
What is economics all about? How apropos is a blog on Keynes? Why Keynes?
The interaction of the three participant groups is the driving force of the economic activity that generates employment and the production of goods and services: financiers expecting return, entrepreneurs planning for production and returns, and laborers counting on income. Overall, the purpose of individuals’ participation, in one group or other, is to generate final demand to satisfy production (what, when, how, and how much) and distribution (who gets what and why). For some economists the market economy is associated with exploitative capitalism; for others, the planned economy is economic authoritarianism. They have thus different perspectives on the issues of market organization, creation of employment and the consequences of unemployment.
Keynes thought it possible “by a right analysis of the problem to cure the disease [unemployment] whilst preserving efficiency and freedom”. (1936, p. 181)
What analysis? Which disease? What does it mean ‘to preserve efficiency and freedom’?