Séminaire GREDEG : Michele BEE (Univ. Federal de Minas Gerais -Brésil) et Raphael FEVRE (Univ. côte d'Azur)
Publié le 16 janvier 2023
–
Mis à jour le 30 septembre 2023
Date(s)
le 16 février 2023
Lieu(x)
14h - 15h30 Salle Picasso
GREDEG - Bâtiment 2 - Campus Azur du CNRS - 250 rue Albert Einstein - SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS
GREDEG - Bâtiment 2 - Campus Azur du CNRS - 250 rue Albert Einstein - SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS
Title:
Gold Rush vs. War: Reviving Animal Spirits in Times of Crisis
Abstract:
This paper aims to exploit fully the heuristic virtues of Keynes’ famous ‘old bottles’ story, deploying a multi-layered argument and drawing out its broadest implications. In essence, we show that through this story Keynes was making a very serious point about anti-crisis policies: the need for authorities to stimulate animal spirits by relying on people’s natural impulse to action. Rather than taking the place of entrepreneurs and paying people to dig holes, Keynes seems to be arguing that public authorities should put entrepreneurs in a situation where they are so enthusiastic that they go into debt to dig holes, just like during a gold rush. At the same time, it is a question of restoring the banks’ willingness to lend for these over-optimistic projects in a period of total depression. This article explores the conditions that make public intervention as effective as possible through the enthusiasm and individual initiative that can be generated by an artificial gold rush. Such intervention therefore can be as minimal as possible, without having to resort to the opposite authoritarian solution of war. Since the gold rush builds cities and wars destroy them, Keynes spent considerable energy convincing his contemporaries that liberal-democratic countries would have to take the former path if they wanted to avoid the latter.
Working paper
Gold Rush vs. War: Reviving Animal Spirits in Times of Crisis
Abstract:
This paper aims to exploit fully the heuristic virtues of Keynes’ famous ‘old bottles’ story, deploying a multi-layered argument and drawing out its broadest implications. In essence, we show that through this story Keynes was making a very serious point about anti-crisis policies: the need for authorities to stimulate animal spirits by relying on people’s natural impulse to action. Rather than taking the place of entrepreneurs and paying people to dig holes, Keynes seems to be arguing that public authorities should put entrepreneurs in a situation where they are so enthusiastic that they go into debt to dig holes, just like during a gold rush. At the same time, it is a question of restoring the banks’ willingness to lend for these over-optimistic projects in a period of total depression. This article explores the conditions that make public intervention as effective as possible through the enthusiasm and individual initiative that can be generated by an artificial gold rush. Such intervention therefore can be as minimal as possible, without having to resort to the opposite authoritarian solution of war. Since the gold rush builds cities and wars destroy them, Keynes spent considerable energy convincing his contemporaries that liberal-democratic countries would have to take the former path if they wanted to avoid the latter.
Working paper
Date(s)
Le
16 février 2023 14:00
- 15:30
