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1 - THE MEANS TO PROSPERITY (1933)

from VI - LATER ESSAYS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2012

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Summary

In March 1933 The Times published a series of four articles by Keynes entitled ‘The Means to Prosperity’. They provoked wide discussion and were quickly republished in the same month in pamphlet form. In the English edition, two new chapters of introduction and conclusion were added; chapters 11, in, iv and v remained substantially the same as when they appeared in The Times of 13,14,15 and 16 March 1933. In the American edition, which is reprinted here, Keynes added material from his article ‘The Multiplier’ which appeared in the New Statesman and Nation of 1 April 1933 and made several other changes. Because of this extended discussion of the multiplier we have chosen the American edition. Variations between the American and British editions, except in cases of individual words such as ‘British’ before ‘government’ in the former, are noted in the text. Keynes's original footnotes in these sections appear in square brackets.

THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM

If our poverty were due to famine or earthquake or war—if we lacked material things and the resources to produce them, we could not expect to find the means to prosperity except in hard work, abstinence, and invention. In fact, our predicament is notoriously of another kind. It comes from some failure in the immaterial devices of the mind, in the working of the motives which should lead to the decisions and acts of will, necessary to put in movement the resources and technical means we already have.

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Publisher: Royal Economic Society
Print publication year: 1978

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