IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cambje/v43y2019i5p1397-1415..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How can we restore the generality of the General Theory?

Author

Listed:
  • Teodoro Dario Togati

Abstract

In this paper, I tackle the key issue raised by Pasinetti, namely why Keynes failed to accomplish his revolution and build a unifying ‘monetary theory of production’ framework. I argue that this occurred because, following his Marshallian background, he adopted an oversimplified view of the structure of theories, a problem which, following Leontief, might be labelled as ‘implicit theorising’ (IT). By making a comparison between the General Theory and standard macroeconomics based on Lakatos’s ‘research programme’ notion, this paper explores IT in a systematic fashion and stresses two key points. First, Keynes did not attack the ‘true’ orthodox postulates but only the conclusions deriving from them. Secondly, he failed to articulate his own research programme effectively. Based on these points, the paper concludes that filling such gaps in Keynes’s theory is the precondition for restoring his generality claim.

Suggested Citation

  • Teodoro Dario Togati, 2019. "How can we restore the generality of the General Theory?," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 43(5), pages 1397-1415.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:43:y:2019:i:5:p:1397-1415.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/bey052
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Teodoro Dario Togati, 2021. "On two recent attempts to introduce animal spirits in macroeconomics: Heresy or enlightened church reform?," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 74(296), pages 51-73.
    2. Teodoro Dario Togati, 2021. "General Theorizing and Historical Specificity in the ‘Keynes Versus the Classics’ Dispute," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 273-294, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:43:y:2019:i:5:p:1397-1415.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/cje .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.