Editing Keynesian economics (section)

===<span id="policydebates">Public policy debates</span>===
As the 1929 election approached "Keynes was becoming a strong public advocate of capital development" as a public measure to alleviate unemployment.<ref>Kahn, ''op. cit.'', p78.</ref> Winston Churchill, the Conservative Chancellor, took the opposite view:
<blockquote>It is the orthodox Treasury dogma, steadfastly held ... [that] very little additional employment and no permanent additional employment can, in fact, be created by State borrowing and State expenditure.<ref>Kahn, ''op. cit.'', p. 79, quoting from Keynes's collected writings.</ref></blockquote>
Keynes pounced on a flaw in the [[Treasury view]]. Cross-examining [[Richard Hopkins (civil servant)|Sir Richard Hopkins]], a Second Secretary in the Treasury, before the [[Macmillan Committee]] on Finance and Industry in 1930 he referred to the "first proposition" that "schemes of capital development are of no use for reducing unemployment" and asked whether "it would be a misunderstanding of the Treasury view to say that they hold to the first proposition". Hopkins responded that "The first proposition goes much too far. The first proposition would ascribe to us an absolute and rigid dogma, would it not?"<ref>Kahn, ''op. cit.'', pp83f, quoting the Committee minutes.</ref>

Later the same year, speaking in a newly created Committee of Economists, Keynes tried to use Kahn's emerging multiplier theory to argue for public works, "but Pigou's and Henderson's objections ensured that there was no sign of this in the final product".<ref>Kahn, ''op. cit.'', p. 96, quoting a study by Susan Howson and Donald Winch.</ref> In 1933 he gave wider publicity to his support for Kahn's multiplier in a series of articles titled "The road to prosperity" in ''The Times'' newspaper.<ref>Dimand, ''op. cit.'', p158.</ref>

[[Arthur Cecil Pigou|A. C. Pigou]] was at the time the sole economics professor at Cambridge. He had a continuing interest in the subject of unemployment, having expressed the view in his popular ''Unemployment'' (1913) that it was caused by "maladjustment between wage-rates and demand"<ref>Cited by Kahn, ''op. cit.'', p. 193.</ref> – a view Keynes may have shared prior to the years of the ''General Theory''. Nor were his practical recommendations very different: "on many occasions in the thirties" Pigou "gave public support [...] to State action designed to stimulate employment".<ref>Kahn, ''op. cit.'', p. 193.</ref> Where the two men differed is in the link between theory and practice. Keynes was seeking to build theoretical foundations to support his recommendations for public works while Pigou showed no disposition to move away from classical doctrine. Referring to him and [[Dennis Robertson (economist)|Dennis Robertson]], Keynes asked rhetorically: "Why do they insist on maintaining theories from which their own practical conclusions cannot possibly follow?"<ref>Dimand, ''op. cit.'', p. 76.</ref>