Essay on John Maynard Keynes Versus Friederich A. Hayek

Economist, Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes disagree on many of the economic policies and theories created by each individual. Each financial analyst has their own opinion when it comes to the Theory of the Consumption Function, monetary policy, and the free market. Friedman, a capitalist economist lays out of the benefits and importance of spending and earning money. While Keynes, a man who has more of a socialist view, finds many of Friedman’s theories ineffective.

However, on Black Thursday, stocks prices plunged and the downward spiral could not be stopped. During the 30s, values and prices spiraled downward and left people with no ability to earn, repay, spend, or consume. The banks also went down with it and people tried to rush to withdraw all of their savings. Millions of people lost everything and the government could not do anything about it, but instead made it worse. There was extremely high unemployment. Keynes was the real inventor of macroeconomics during these time period, as well as GDP, rate of inflation, and many other things. When Roosevelt came into office, he had to face the debt and his confidence rallied the whole nation, along with the New Deal. He created new agencies to regulate banks and the stock markets. Under the New Deal, industry came under many new rules and regulations. Keynes ideas began to gain ground during this time and World War II is what it took for his theories to become government policies. As the war began, high unemployment ended and the depression was gone, which was a demonstration of Keynesian ideas.

During the Great depression, British economist John Maynard Keynes developed what is known as the Keynesian economics. Keynesian economics is an economic theory of aggregate demand or the total spending in the economy. (Investopedia, LLC., 2003)

The ideas of John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek have dominated the economic landscape since the end of World War II. Both of these influential economists had distinct ideas about economic freedom--ideas that were very clearly in opposition to each other. Following World War II, one major economic question dealt with the appropriate role for government in the economy. That has often been portrayed more recently as a battle between two economic titans. Hayek, in the 1970s, came to be seen as opposing everything Keynes and the Keynesian consensus stood for. More recently, many see the change towards more free-market ideas since the 1980s as the victory of Hayek's ideas over Keynes'—a process that has since reversed as a result of the Great Recession. This academic battle of ideas has even made its way into popular media.

John Keynes and Friedrich Hayek where two of the most influential economic minds of the 20th century. Each of these men’s ideas had a great impact on the economy of numerous countries and helped countries find economic success different times.

We can see the implementation of Keynes’s and Hayek’s theory throughout history and even in today economy. Keynesian economics was created by the British economist John Maynard Keynes in the 1930’s. The theory is the idea of increasing the government spending and lower taxes in times of depression. In times of economic prosper the government supported to cut spending and raise taxis to save up for the next depression. An example of a country using Keynesian economics to stop an economic depression is during the Great Desperation. Franklin D. Roosevelt the president during that time used Keynesian to push the U.S. out of the Great Desperation. In the movie, they talk about the steps taken to help the U.S. “They were at war with the Great Depression, and they responded with frenetic activity, relief programs for the unemployed, for the hungry; programs to get people back to work.” (Commanding Heights, Daniel Yergin).

John Maynard Keynes school of thought is that with government intervention, the economy can be stabilized. Friedrich A. Hayek opposed the theories of John Maynard Keynes and argued that with government intervention in the free market will cause destructive repercussion and it could not prevent inflation, recession or unemployment.

Keynes is a more modern economist than Hayek. Keynes and Hayek constructed their economics models separately, however they were both working on it at the same time. They were aware of each others work, views and beliefs. Battles over their work were frequent. Unfortunately for Hayek , many other economists were in favour of Keynes general theory of employment , interest and money. Essentially this

The two economist have very different theories in how the government should interact with the economy. Keynes believes that the government needs to spend money to fill the gap in aggregate demand from the private section. He believes the flow of money through spending generates a healthy economy. While on the other hand Hayek believes for capitalism to flourish the state must remove itself from all economic activity, but the military and transportation. Additionally, he believes that will less regulations there will be better management of money and investments in a free market. The two views both have valid points to create and sustain a productive economy. I believe there should be less regulations and wasteful spending by our government, however I also believe there is a place for government spending to prevent unjust pricing and regulations against the people.

John Maynard Keynes is the first economic maverick here who calls attention to the flaws in common economic assumptions while also expanding the

In 1929, the stock market crashed. The values of production gone down, work force lost their jobs, millions of families lost their homes as well as millions of saving accounts were lost because banks closed for good. Those events resulted in the Great Depression. As a result, the world was plunged into economic turmoil. However, two prominent economists emerged with competing claims and sharply contrasting approaches on how a capitalist economy works and how to revive it when depressed. John Maynard Keynes an English economist believed that government has responsibility to intervene in an economical crisis whereas, Friedrich Hayek an Austrian-born economist and philosopher believed that the government intervention is worthless and

One of the hardest and most difficult economic recessions in history was accomplished using Keynesian economics by John Fredrick Kennedy. “Keynesian economics is a theory of total spending in the economy (called aggregate demand) and its effects on output and inflation. Although the term has been used (and abused) to describe many things over the years” there is six principal systems or beliefs that are what a Keynesian believes. (20) A Keynesian believes that total demand is inclined by a swarm of financial decisions public and private. The public decisions include, financial and economic policies. Nearly all Keynesians and monetarists believe that both financial and economic policies affect total demand. Secondly changes in total demand have their affect on output and on employment not on prices. Keynesians believe that it must get worse for it to get better. Also they believe that we live in the short run of things not in the long run. Keynes’s famous statement, “In the long run, we are all dead.” Thirdly Keynesians believe that prices, and more

Keynesian economists proposed that the way to escape the Great Depression was through a combination of two approaches. First to reduce interest rates. Second, the government should begin investing in infrastructure, which injects money into

Keynes got involved into economics because of the time period in which he lived in. He was seeing the effects of the great depression in his home of Great Britain. The measures taken to stop the great depression all fell within the school of classical economics. “Two events spurred Keynes’ development of his new model. The first was the inability of the British economy to overcome the Great Depression.

The U.S. never fully recovered from the Great Depression until the government employed the use of Keynes Economics. John Maynard Keynes was a British economist whose ideas and theories have greatly influenced the practice of modern economics as well as the economic policies of governments worldwide. He believed that in times when the economy slowed down or encountered declines, people would not spend as much money and therefore the economy would steadily decline until a depression occurred. He proposed that if the government injected money into the economy, it would help stimulate consumers to purchase more and firms would produce more as a result, in a continuous cycle. This cycle is called the multiplier effect. Keynes ideas have