Editing Keynesian economics (section)

=== Precursors of Keynesianism ===
{{See also|Underconsumption|Birmingham School (economics)|Stockholm school (economics)}}
Although Keynes's work was crystallized and given impetus by the advent of the [[Great Depression]], it was part of a long-running debate within economics over the existence and nature of [[general glut]]s. A number of the policies Keynes advocated to address the Great Depression (notably government deficit spending at times of low private investment or consumption), and many of the theoretical ideas he proposed (effective demand, the multiplier, the [[paradox of thrift]]), had been advanced by authors in the 19th and early 20th centuries. (E.g. [[J. M. Robertson]] raised the paradox of thrift [[J. M. Robertson#Political views|in 1892]].<ref name="neglect">{{cite journal|last1=Nash|first1=Robert T.|last2=Gramm|first2=William P.|year=1969|title=A Neglected Early Statement the Paradox of Thrift|journal=History of Political Economy|volume=1|issue=2|pages=395–400|doi=10.1215/00182702-1-2-395}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/fallacyofsavings00robe/fallacyofsavings00robe_djvu.txt|title=The Fallacy of Saving|last=Robertson|first=John M.|year=1892|author-link=J. M. Robertson}}</ref>) Keynes's unique contribution was to provide a ''general theory'' of these, which proved acceptable to the economic establishment.

An intellectual precursor of Keynesian economics was [[underconsumption]] theories associated with [[John Law (economist)|John Law]], [[Thomas Malthus]], the [[Birmingham School (economics)|Birmingham School]] of [[Thomas Attwood (economist)|Thomas Attwood]],<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e1ZEPd_pQnoC|title=Business Cycles and Depressions: An Encyclopedia|last=Glasner|first=David|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=1997|isbn=978-0-8240-0944-1|editor-last=Glasner|editor-first=David|page=22|contribution=Attwood, Thomas (1783–1856)|access-date=15 June 2009|contribution-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e1ZEPd_pQnoC&pg=PA22|archive-date=9 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170709015906/https://books.google.com/books?id=e1ZEPd_pQnoC|url-status=live}}</ref> and the American economists [[William Trufant Foster]] and [[Waddill Catchings]], who were influential in the 1920s and 1930s. Underconsumptionists were, like Keynes after them, concerned with failure of [[aggregate demand]] to attain potential output, calling this "underconsumption" (focusing on the demand side), rather than "[[overproduction]]" (which would focus on the supply side), and advocating [[economic interventionism]]. Keynes specifically discussed underconsumption (which he wrote "under-consumption") in the ''General Theory,'' in [http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/ch22.htm#iv Chapter 22, Section IV] and [http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/ch23.htm#vii Chapter 23, Section VII].

Numerous concepts were developed earlier and independently of Keynes by the [[Stockholm school (economics)|Stockholm school]] during the 1930s; these accomplishments were described in a 1937 article, published in response to the 1936 ''General Theory,'' sharing the Swedish discoveries.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ohlin|first=Bertil|author-link=Bertil Ohlin|year=1937|title=Some Notes on the Stockholm Theory of Savings and Investment|journal=Economic Journal}}</ref>