Tag Archives: Joan Robinson

It should not be a surprise that John Maynard Keynes is often seen as being relatively conservative by many progressively inclined or radical economists, that often tend to prefer the views of Michal Kalecki, or the more radical approach of Keynes’ favorite disciple, Joan Robinson. That is not the case in James Crotty’s book Keynes Against Capitalism, who takes a diametrically opposite view. He tells us that: “It is almost universally believed that Keynes wrote his magnum opus, The General...

By Jan Toporowski*Jerzy completed his matriculation at Juliusz Słowacki Liceum in Warsaw and went on to study economics in the elite foreign trade faculty of the Main School of Planning and Statistics (Szkoła Główna Planowania i Statystyki SGPiS – now reverted to its pre-War name of the Main School of Commerce Szkoła Główna Handlowa). He completed his PhD there and by then had fallen into the circle of economists around Michał Kalecki, who lectured on the economics of capitalism and convened...

In Chapter 1 of The General Theory Keynes famously refers to two “postulates of Classical economics”, one of which determines the demand for labour and the other the supply. He states that “I shall argue that the postulates…are applicable to a special case only and not to the general case”, with continuous full employment the “special case” and less than full employment the general case. In the context of later parts of The General Theory (for example, Appendix on User Cost and Chapter 20...

Keeper Joan Robinson quote on trade.The Case for Concerted Action Misinterpretation Of Joan Robinson’s Quote On Dropping RocksV. Ramanan

Interesting quote from Joan Robinson.The Case for Concerted ActionContrasting Joan Robinson And Paul Krugman’s Views On The Global Rules Of TradeV. Ramanan

Some good quotations. The Case for Concerted ActionJoan Robinson And Nicholas Kaldor On Antagonism To Keynesian IdeasV. Ramanan

Nice post on trade, citing Joan Robinson and Nicholas Kaldor.The Case for Concerted ActionMore Free Trade OrthodoxiesV. Ramanan

Fun if you are interested in Joan Robinson, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Cambridge of the Twenties, and enjoy personal anecdotes. Incidentally, I am surprised and not surprised that Joan Robinson confessed to not understand the first propositions of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I am not surprised in that they sound like metaphysical statements and many if not most readers are at least initially confused by this appearance.  I am surprised, however, than Robinson did not...

Another short review and a letter from John Kenneth Galbraith to Joan Robinson. It is timely given the present attention to the persisting paucity of women economists in the profession and the professional literature. Many feel that Joan Robinson never got the credit she was due.Naked KeynesianismSunday Reading: Economic Letters of NoteMatias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, Bucknell University

Rick Holt edited a superb book with John Kenneth Galbraith's letters from the 1930s until his death in 2006. He wrote to everybody, friend and foe, and displays his usual wit. Here I reproduce parts of his letter to Joan Robinson, that he wrote after having invited her to give the Ely Lecture (subscription required).The letter is from January 12, 1972. It says:Dear Joan: Many thanks for your note. If the meetings were slightly less stuffy and neoclassical than usual, it was owing more...