- Title
- Keynes from below : a social history of Second World War Keynesian economics
- Creator
- Coventry, Cameron
- Date
- 2023
- Type
- Text; Thesis; PhD
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/195709
- Identifier
- vital:18561
- Abstract
- The macroeconomic agenda known as Keynesianism was highly contentious when it was introduced to Australia during the Second World War. Using a ‘history from below’ approach – correctly understood as a society-wide analysis – this thesis reveals the debates and the participants in the social nexus that considered the work of the British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). It shows that the populous willed a break from the status quo, ranging in favour of socialism to a non-capitalist third way. Support for Keynesianism was isolated to capital and the political right wing, with labour, centrists, the left and far-left strongly opposed. As the war progressed, apathy set in and Keynesianism came to be seen by opponents as either a non-capitalist third way or as the triumph of the possible over the desirable socialist “new order”. From 1936, Keynes had popularised a new economics based on full employment planning that quickly displaced ‘laissez faire capitalism’ in the minds of economists and policymakers. As war broke out, Keynes submitted a war finance plan for public consideration in the United Kingdom. Essentially, the plan addressed the practical aspects of managing an economy experiencing full employment. It contained measures to reduce wage growth to counter rising inflation, welfare for mothers and children to protect their well-being – but also the population growth essential to future economic growth – and the partial repayment of seized wages at the end of the war that would form the basis of post-war “reconstruction”. The Keynes plan generated interest in Australia which rapidly turned to speculation about its applicability. A fierce debate raged, divided on broad political lines, for two years that would shift public opinion and contribute significantly to the rise of the Curtin government (1941-45). However, once enthusiasm for reconstruction waned, it was this government that brought about post-war Keynesianism.; Doctor of Philosophy
- Publisher
- Federation University Australia
- Rights
- All metadata describing materials held in, or linked to, the repository is freely available under a CC0 licence
- Rights
- Copyright Cameron Coventry
- Rights
- Open Access
- Subject
- Keynes; Social history; Keynesianism; War; People
- Full Text
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