------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------
Published by EH.NET (August 2008)

Gilles Dostaler, _Keynes and His Battles_. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 
2007. vi + 374 pp. $160 (cloth), ISBN: 978-1-85898-266-3.

Reviewed for EH.NET by M. G. Hayes, Homerton College, University of 
Cambridge.


This book sets out to be a study of Keynes militant, neither a full 
biography nor a study of his thought alone, let alone merely his 
economics. Gilles Dostaler (Professor of Economics at Universit? du 
Qu?bec ? Montreal) argues that the ?common thread throughout Keynes?s 
kaleidoscopic activities? is a permanent struggle to convince others of 
the need for radical transformation to preserve a fragile and threatened 
civilization. He is in no doubt that the study of this extraordinary man 
has continuing relevance, not only to the historian, but for our own times.

The book addresses Keynes?s war of words along four dimensions: 
philosophical, political, economic and aesthetic. Keynes?s struggles are 
identified as respectively against Victorian morality, the imposition of 
unpayable reparations on Germany, unemployment and the Gold Standard, 
and to establish the arts as an essential pursuit of a civilized society.

Ethics is the theme of Chapter 2, which includes by way of ?interlude? a 
detailed account of Bloomsbury. The ?Bloomsberries? are said to have 
seen themselves as ?architects of a new civilized, rational society, one 
liberated from moral constraints and devoted to the quest for beauty and 
truth.? Dostaler sees Keynes in revolt against the Victorian morality of 
his childhood, under the influence of the liberal moralists Bentham, J. 
S. Mill and Sidgwick who sought to establish a morality without 
religion, seizing upon the philosophy of G. E. Moore as a religion 
without morality, and finally in his mature years coming to recognize 
the power of tradition and convention in the maintenance of civilization 
against the forces of unreason.

Continuing the philosophical theme, Chapter 3 reviews Keynes?s struggle 
in the field of epistemology, tracing his revolt against his father?s 
positivism, through _A Treatise on Probability_ and his response to 
Ramsey and Wittgenstein, to his critique of the inappropriate use of 
statistics and insistence that economics is necessarily a moral, not a 
natural, science.

Chapter 4 moves from ethics to Keynes?s political vision, emphasizing 
the significance of an undergraduate prize-winning essay on Burke. 
Keynes?s complex political position, which defies pigeon-holing but lies 
somewhere between radical liberalism and moderate socialism, avoids both 
reaction and revolution in favor of non-violent reform by judicious 
expedients, towards an ultimate ideal that engages the big questions, 
what is the economy for and how should we exercise the freedom that 
results from prosperity? The chapter closes with a second historical 
interlude to provide the context for Keynes?s own government and 
political activities. Chapter 5 considers Keynes?s early views on 
imperialism and pacifism, before reviewing his practical role at the 
heart of the British government?s external financial negotiations, 
especially with the United States during World War I and at the 
reparations conference. The chapter ends by recording the extent to 
which history bore out Keynes?s analysis in _The Economic Consequences 
of the Peace_, the book that made his name.

Chapters 6 through 8 turn to Keynes?s economics and his long campaign to 
transform both theory and policy. Chapter 6 identifies the central 
importance of money in Keynes?s thought, including his struggle against 
the Quantity Theory and to convince Classical economists of the 
significance of the differences between a real-exchange and a monetary 
economy, between saving and finance, and between real wages and 
money-wages. The progression of Keynes?s thought from _The Tract_ to 
_The General Theory_ reflects a sustained attempt to give expression to 
the insights of Aristotle, Aquinas and (perhaps) Freud, ultimately in 
the formal language of liquidity-preference. Chapter 7 considers his 
related efforts to articulate a theory of employment based on effective 
demand rather than the cost of labor. The genesis of _The General 
Theory_ is depicted as a rationalization of long-held intuitions and of 
policies that were not by any means uniquely Keynes?s, such as public 
works. Chapter 8 links money and employment by recounting Keynes?s 
life-long battle, once again in great part with the United States, to 
civilize the international monetary system.

Chapter 9 reviews some of Keynes?s early philosophical reflections about 
the nature of beauty before turning to his role as consumer and patron 
of the arts. Dostaler conveys well Keynes?s Periclean vision of a 
civilization where art is valued for its own sake, and not as a means. 
Chapter 10 draws together this portrait of Keynes as a figure of immense 
stature, greatly respected but only partly understood by friend and foe 
alike, often wrongly given both credit and blame for the course of 
subsequent economic history, passionately committed to bringing about a 
better world by ?judicious expedients,? if sometimes overly sanguine 
about the relative power of ideas and vested interests.

There are some textual slips (e.g. the eighteenth century doctrine of 
Aquinas, p. 177; and the reference to _GT_ Book V as Book IV, p. 197). 
The translation by Niall B. Mann is of high quality and I was seldom 
conscious that the original (2005) was written in French, despite one or 
two awkward phrases, although some chapters are more fluent than others. 
A particular feature is the interweaving of historical events and 
theoretical development. The bibliography and notes are comprehensive 
and erudite, and the timetable useful.

It is not clear to me that Bloomsbury entirely fits Dostaler?s thesis, 
at least in the field of ethics as opposed to aesthetics: he was its 
patron, to some extent its publisher, and it was part of his private 
life. To say as much does not detract from its influence on Keynes?s 
motivation and interests, particularly as an experiment in the Good 
Life. Yet as a field of public campaign for sexual liberation, etc? -- I 
am not convinced.

_The General Theory_ is my particular field of interest and I question 
one or two of Dostaler?s claims. Nevertheless, he wisely sets out to 
avoid detailed theoretical controversy (p. 5) and on the whole he 
succeeds. It is unfortunate that he seems to support the idea that _The 
General Theory_ is (merely) a literary work, as opposed to a scholarly 
treatise (pp. 196-97); by these criteria, Marshall?s _Principles_ falls 
into the same category. In my opinion, Dostaler underestimates the 
continuity between the thought of Marshall and Keynes, both in style and 
substance.

Compared with Skidelsky?s chronological biography (2003), Dostaler 
achieves both reasonable depth and concision by following a particular 
thread, Keynes?s struggle against conventional wisdom, across the 
various fields of interest (or battle). The result is a satisfying and 
highly readable book, especially for non-economists and non-British 
readers approaching Keynes from a wider perspective, and compares 
favorably with Hession (1984), whose less successful unifying thesis was 
the relationship between Keynes?s creativity and sexuality. Dostaler?s 
book is also quite accessible and should be of interest to 
undergraduates as well as the more specialized reader. I do not detect 
much new primary material -- not surprising in this well-ploughed field 
-- but the interpretative exposition is meticulously researched, 
original and lucid.

References:

Gilles Dostaler, 2005. _Keynes et ses combats_, Paris: Albin Michel.

Charles H. Hession, 1984. _John Maynard Keynes_. New York and London: 
Macmillan.

Robert Skidelsky, 2003. _John Maynard Keynes 1883-1946: Economist, 
Philosopher, Statesman_. London: Pan Macmillan.


M. G. (Mark) Hayes is Senior Research Fellow in Economics at Homerton 
College in the University of Cambridge. His major work on Keynes is _The 
Economics of Keynes: A New Guide to The General Theory_, Edward Elgar, 
2006. http://www.homerton.cam.ac.uk/teaching/fellows/mark_hayes

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