HARLAN LINNEUS MCCRACKEN
It was at this very moment, sometime early in 1933 and purely by chance, that Keynes received an unsolicited copy of a newly published book, Value Theory and Business Cycles, written by an American economist at the University of Minnesota by name of Harlan Linneus McCracken. That Keynes read at least a portion of this book while writing the General Theory has been evident since the publication of volume xxix of Keynes’ Collected Writings in 1979. In «a draft of chapter 2 from the last 1933 table of contents» (Moggridge in cw, xxix, 76), there is an extended footnote which begins:
Cf. H.L. McCracken, Value Theory and Business Cycles, [New York, 1933], 46, where this part of Marx’s theory is cited in relation to modern theory.
(cw, xxix, 81, fn.; square brackets in the original)
Most scholars have attached little significance to this citation since neither McCracken nor Marx had appeared to have had much to contribute to our understanding of how the General Theorycame to be written as it was. This is in spite of the fact that Value Theory and Business Cycles is about the conflicting approaches to the business cycle one would be prone to take were an economist to follow Ricardo rather than Malthus. Indeed, the book is largely about the impossibility of utilising Ricardian analysis in explaining the business cycle in contrast to the need to employ the kind of analysis pioneered by Malthus. All this is set out in the preface. Firstly McCracken discusses Ricardo:
The analysis appears to show that no embodied value theorist can logically explain a business cycle. He either involves himself in a dual theory of value, a logical inconsistency, or explains nothing but a secular trend. The presentation is quite critical, since it deals, as we believe, with the ‘false trails,’ based upon an erroneous theory of value, formulated by Ricardo.
(McCracken 1933, v)
Keynes, in arguing that because his contemporaries were following in the steps of Ricardo the notion of involuntary unemployment is a «possibility of which the classical theory does not admit» (cw, vii, 15), or that there is a «vitally important chapter of economic theory which remains to be written without which all discussions concerning the volume of aggregate employment are futile» (ibidem, 26) appears to be making a claim almost identical to the characterisation made by McCracken: an inability to generate a cyclical downturn appeared to be a consequence of adopting a Ricardian approach to the business cycle. In turning to Malthus, however, McCracken presents an argument that would be mirrored in the General Theory:
Malthus serves as a logical starting point for the consideration of business cycles, first, because he stressed the importance of ‘short run’ factors, and second, because his value approach was from the demand side. Consistent with his theory of value, he held that business might be depressed, either by a voluntary failure of demand on the part of those who had the power but not the will, or by an involuntary failure of demand by those who had the will but not the power.
(McCracken 1933, v-vi)
This is the same Malthus and the same contrast with Ricardo that would later on be found in the General Theory itself.
KEYNES’S LETTER TO MCCRACKEN
Until now, however, the question whether Keynes had actually read McCracken’s writings on Ricardo and Malthus was unanswerable. That he had read the sections on Marx was unarguable but whether he had read any of the rest of Value Theory and Business Cycles could only be left to conjecture.
Moreover, the question of Malthus’s writings having been a significant influence on Keynes’s thinking is far from accepted. It is for these reasons that a 1933 letter from Keynes to Harlan McCracken uncovered in June 2007 is of such significance (see Kates 2008). The letter makes clear the answers to both of these issues: firstly, whether Keynes read more of McCracken than just the section on Marx, and secondly, whether Malthus had been a major influence on Keynes’s thought. The following letter, dated 31st August 1933, was found in the McCracken archive at Lsu where it had lain since being deposited in 1961.[13]
Dear Dr. McCracken,
Having now read your book, I must again thank you for having sent it to me. For I have found it of much interest, particularly perhaps the passages relating to Karl Marx, with which I have never been so familiar as I ought to have been.
In the matter of Malthus, you will perhaps have seen from my account of him in my lately published “Essays in Biography”, which appeared before your book was out, but after I think you had written it, that I wholly agree with you in regarding him as a much under-estimated pioneer in the line of thought which to-day seems to me by far the most likely to lead to progress in the analysis of the business cycle. Your contrast between Ricardo and Malthus contains, I am convinced, the essence of the matter.
Yours very truly,
J. M. Keynes
The answer to whether Keynes read McCracken is quite clearly stated at the very start of the letter. Keynes wrote «having now read your book», a statement which should settle any doubts about whether Keynes had read the other parts of the book dealing with matters aside from Marx.
But what is far more significant is Keynes’s statement on the relevance of Malthus to how economic theory must develop. Keynes is unequivocal: it is Malthus’s «line of thought» that is «by far the most likely to lead to progress in the analysis of the business cycle» (italics added). Keynes does not endorse any of the specifics of Malthus’s analysis but its overall approach. It is a restatement of the sentiment found in his biographical essay where Keynes lamented, «if only Malthus, instead of Ricardo, had been the parent stem from which nineteenth-century economics proceeded» (cw, x, 100-101). Malthus does not provide the final answers, but it is from his analysis, according to Keynes, that economic theory ought to have initially developed, and even though it had not done so then, it should nevertheless do so now. It is Malthus’s «line of thought» that Keynes would now himself adopt.
SUPPLY CREATED ITS OWN DEMAND
One could, of course, decide Keynes had found someone else who had come to the same conclusion as he had on Ricardo and Malthus. Coincidence possibly or parallel development of ideas. One could thus say there is nothing in their mutual agreement on these questions that suggests McCracken had influenced Keynes except for this: it is from McCracken that Keynes takes the phrase “supply creates its own demand” as a definition of Say’s Law.
It has been generally assumed those words have their origins in the early nineteenth century, most probably because when Keynes first uses the phrase himself, he states «from the time of Say and Ricardo the classical economists have taught that supply creates its own demand» (cw, vii, 18). The implication is that this was a standard form of words that had been the common property of early writers on economic matters in describing the law of markets. In actuality, neither this form of words nor any close variant has ever been found in any of the classical writers.[14] These words are, however, with only one minor variation, found in McCracken and with specific reference to Say’s Law. The following is from McCracken’s discussion of involuntary failure of demand:
The Automatic Production-Consumption Economists [ie those economists who accept Say’s Law] who insisted that supply created its own demand, that goods exchanged against goods and that a money economy was only refined and convenient indirect barter missed the significance of the money economy entirely.
(McCracken 1933, 159; italics added)
Thus, the one phrase virtually every economist can be expected to know was first written by Harlan McCracken. None of this is to suggest plagiarism since Keynes himself assumed an antique origin for these words from amongst the early classical writers. But whether consciously or not, here we have a book known to have been read by Keynes while writing the General Theory in which are found words that are found no earlier anywhere else as a definition of Say’s Law. The evidence is, of course, circumstantial but is irresistible for all that: McCracken had profoundly shaped Keynes’s thought. It was McCracken’s understanding that it was Say’s Law which divided Ricardo from Malthus, and it was McCracken’s interpretation of Say’s Law and the major role Say’s Law had played in shaping the subsequent development of economic theory, that were adopted by Keynes. These became the standard framework for understanding this classical principle and its significance.
MCCRACKEN AND THE MPC
One other area of overlap should be noted, the highly suggestive parallel between McCracken’s discussion of demand failure in Malthus and Keynes’s subsequent analysis in relation to the marginal propensity to consume. Chapter 8 of the General Theory presents what Keynes regarded as the basic relationship between the level of income and the level of consumer demand. This relationship is presented as a «fundamental psychological law >> (cw, VII, 96).
Compare this with the following passage in McCracken found in a chapter titled «The Malthusian System of Economic Thought>. There McCracken wrote that diminishing marginal utility of goods in aggregate might lead to a fall in the level of demand relative to supply. The consequence is a fall in the proportion of one’s income spent as incomes rise, and here too psychology has a part to play:
It is readily discernible that Malthus was introducing a psychological element into value and price, and the law of demand and supply… By a rigorous application of the principle of diminishing utility, Aftalion showed how the intensity of desire for any given good declines as additional units are acquired or consumed, and in like manner intensity of desire for all goods declines as we climb down the scale of needs from the more necessitous goods to the less necessitous.
(McCracken 1933, 214-215)
In Malthus’s time, it would have been impossible to imagine an entire society having run out of demands in general. Malthus therefore attributed the insufficiency of demand to extreme inequalities of wealth where those with high incomes did not spend all they had received. A century later, Aftalion (1913) in an attack on the law of markets, can conceive of a situation in which diminishing marginal utility for goods in general might lead to a decline in consumption expenditure. This too is discussed by McCracken in a section of his book that one is directed to in the passage on Malthus just quoted. There McCracken wrote:
Psychological observation reveals the existence of a long scale of desires, but desires of diminishing intensity… The intensity of desire diminishes as we increase our power to satisfy the lesser needs.
(Ibidem, 145)
This is the same concept used by Keynes and here too it is presented as a psychological principle. Moreover, McCracken adds to the allure for Keynes of finally embodying this concept into mainstream economics with the suggestion that this would be a theoretical breakthrough of the highest order of significance:
If Aftalion has succeeded in establishing the possibility of a voluntary failure of demand by those who have purchasing power but insufficient keenness of desire, when facing expanded production under the influence of the principle of diminishing utility, then it constitutes one of the greatest contributions to economic theory in a generation. Say’s Law of Markets, according to which production financed consumption and supply generated adequate demand is in serious need of modification.
(Ibidem, 149, fn.; italics in the original)
This passage is also noteworthy in that it gives a name to the relevant principle: «Say’s Law of Markets».[15]
COMPLETING THE TASK
The fortuitous arrival of McCracken’s Value Theory and Business Cycles in early 1933 was a prime example in the parallel development of thought. Keynes immediately recognised the strong similarity of view. How much Keynes already understood of the context of the Malthus-Ricardo correspondence or the General Glut debates is difficult to know. But McCracken, being as he was a specialist in the history of thought, would have added to Keynes’s understanding of the issues at stake, and provided an appreciation of what was needed to refute Say’s Law.
However, in showing that savings might grow as a proportion of income as income increased, it would have been clear to Keynes that less than half the task in demonstrating the possibility of demand deficiency was complete. What was still needed was a theory to explain why the additional savings made available because of a proportionate drop in consumption would not be channelled into investment through adjustments in the rate of interest. The elements that went into this part of the story were, in essence, the theory of liquidity preference, the marginal efficiency of capital and the related notions of expectations and economic uncertainty. These were, however, concepts that in early 1933 Keynes had not yet appreciated the significance of. As he noted in an oft-quoted passage in his letter to Harrod (cw, xiv, 85), these concepts would be assembled one by one.
Each of these concepts had already been discussed in depth in the contemporary economic literature by leading economists but in each case with a different purpose in mind. Moreover, each of these economists had had a book published during the early 1930s while Keynes was preparing the General Theory. Two of these works were published in 1933 and two in 1934, the years of greatest intensity in the development of Keynes’s core ideas.
JOHN R. COMMONS
The first of these economists was John R. Commons. In 1961, McCracken published his Keynesian Economics in the Stream of Economic Thought, a work that had developed out of his graduate seminar at LSu on Keynesian theory. In it he devoted an entire chapter to the work of Commons. This chapter is, moreover, no mere diversion but 34 pages in length and titled simply «John R. Commons». In his explanatory footnote, McCracken’s first sentence stated that «perhaps the reader is entitled to a brief explanation as to why a rather extended treatment of Commons is included in a study of Keynesian economics» (McCracken 1961, 61, fn.). It is a question that might well be asked.
Although not mentioned in his book, McCracken had in fact undertaken his doctorate under Commons at the University of Wisconsin, completing his thesis in 1922 and receiving his Ph.D. in 1923. According to university records, the thesis was embodied in an article that was published in the Review of Economic Statistics in 1922 and titled, «Secular Trends and Business Cycles: a Classification of Theories». Its joint authors were listed as J. R. Commons, H. L. McCracken and W. E. Zeuch.
And although the article is about classifications of the theory of the cycle, its very first paragraph deals with the differences between Malthus and Ricardo. The differences outlined would be entirely familiar to anyone who had read the General Theory. Then well into the article the following discussion occurs which expands on their contrasting theories of the cycle in which it is noted that «Malthus differed from Ricardo at almost every point» (Commons, McCracken and Zeuch 1922, 258). Note the difference in policy that follows from Malthus’s approach relative to Ricardo’s. It is clear why Keynes preferred Malthus’s theories to Ricardo’s:
According to Ricardo, there could be no universal or general overproduction of goods….
“But Malthus contended that the great mass of commodities is exchanged directly or indirectly for labor, either productively or unproductively. Hence, compared with labour, all of the goods may fall in value at the same time. And this general fall in value proceeds from a ‘glut,’ just as any one commodity falls in value from an excess of supply, compared with labor or money.
It followed that Ricardo’s remedy for overproduction of some goods was more production of other goods. It followed that Malthus’ remedy for overproduction was an increase in unproductive consumption, such as taxes, public employment, highways, improvement of landed estates and more employment of menial servants instead of ‘productive’ laborers.
(Ibidem)
Then in a footnote reference to a discussion on Sismondi, and where it is noted that in the theory being discussed «the market becomes glutted because effective demand was lacking» (ibidem, 251), the authors state:
This question [Sismondi] argued heatedly with J. B. Say and Ricardo. The two latter consistently held that ‘goods exchange against goods’ and therefore supply could never exceed demand.
(Ibidem, 251, fn.)
Thus, going beyond McCracken one encounters arguments found within the institutionalist school in looking at the nature of the business cycle. None of this is presented as an example of parallel discovery but as part of a process in which the ideas that had been developed by Commons and his students were filtered through to Keynes via McCracken. These were mature ideas that had been debated extensively and were part of a literature on the cycle that was available to scholars across the world.
COMMONS AND EXPECTATIONS
But what makes it even more likely that Keynes would have sought out and read this article was that he was a long-time admirer of Commons and needed no introduction through McCracken. Skidelsky, in his biography of Keynes, noted the high regard Keynes had had for Commons since the 1920s. He stresses that Commons had been an «unacknowledged» although «important» influence on Keynes:
Commons, an institutional economist who taught at Wisconsin University, is an important, if unacknowledged, influence on Keynes. Indeed, Keynes wrote to him in 1927 that ‘there seems to me to be no other economist with whose general way of thinking I feel myself in such general[16] accord’.
(Skidelsky 1992, 229)
Once Keynes had turned to Commons, the book that would almost certainly have come to his attention was Commons’ then most recent publication, Institutional Economics, published in 1934 while Keynes was in the midst of his background research on the General Theory. And it turns out that the central issue raised by Commons was the issue that became the minor theme of the General Theory, the role of expectations in decisions to invest. One might be thought to be drawing a long bow to relate Commons and Keynes in regard to expectations, yet it was McCracken who made this connection without suggesting that Keynes might have taken the idea from Commons. Explicitly McCracken, who understood both Commons and Keynes with extraordinary clarity, having been taught by one and directly influenced the other, recognised how close their thinking on this issue was. McCracken, in looking back on the Keynesian Revolution, makes this observation:
A final feature of Institutional Economics centers around the word ‘futurity.’ Commons definitely anticipated Keynes by approximately twenty years.
(McCracken 1961, 69)
Futurity was Commons’ depiction of value as an estimate of the future flow of income expected to accrue as the result of an investment. This is how McCracken describes the parallel notions in Commons and Keynes:
In class notes of 1921 the author found this statement: ‘Value is a mental appraisal in the present of future uses of incomes.’ The same idea was later included in Institutional Economics: ‘It is evident, indeed, that the entire concept of value is volitional instead of mechanistic, since value is a present estimate of something expected in the future.’
The meaning given to this formal definition was almost precisely the idea later expressed by Keynes in his General Theory (1936), in which Chapter 5 is devoted to expectations….
It is the judgment of the writer that Commons and Keynes have here given us the greatest single contribution to economic theory in this century.
(Ibidem, 70-71; italics in the original but the bolding has been added)
McCracken sums up the comparison by stating that «we learn both from Commons and from Keynes that the value of all goods, commodities, or services is the discounted present worth of future expectations» (ibidem, 73). This was, as McCracken explains, a long-held and long-developed theory of Commons’, outlined at length in a book published in 1934. With Keynes, on the other hand, the marginal efficiency of capital, his name for this form of valuation, is a novel concept not previously presented in any of his prior works. Keynes, in his famous letter to Harrod on the development of the underlying concepts of the General Theory lists the MEc as having occurred last of all in the development of his own thinking and describes its gestation as difficult, writing:
After an immense lot of muddling and many drafts, the proper definition of the marginal efficiency of capital linked up one thing with another.
(cw, xiv, 85)
Moreover, Whalen notes that in a speech given in 1925, Keynes directly excerpts passages from a book written by Commons in that same year. The book, Reasonable Value, is a mimeographed typescript but one which had been published in that form and had been personally distributed by Commons to selected recipients (Whalen 2008, 229). Given the extensive quotes that Keynes took from this book in the speech he gave in 1925, it is clear that Keynes read this book.[17]
And what is of great significance is that section five of Reasonable Value deals with and is titled «Futurity», the issue dealt with by Keynes in the General Theory, which McCracken argued was «the greatest single contribution to economic theory in this century» and which McCracken had further argued that Commons had preceded Keynes by twenty years. Whalen (and others) have examined the connection between Keynes and Commons during the 1920s. More fruitful and of far greater potential importance would be an examination of the role Commons played in shaping Keynes’s ideas in the early 1930s as the General Theory was being written.
IRVING FISHER
That Irving Fisher had developed the concepts embodied in Keynes’s Marginal Efficiency of Capital before Keynes had done so himself seems almost entirely beyond argument. In the General Theory we find the following acknowledgement of Fisher’s work:
Although he does not call it the ‘marginal efficiency of capital,’ Professor Irving Fisher has given in his Theory of Interest (1930) a definition of what he calls ‘the rate of return over costs’ which is identical with my definition… Professor Fisher uses his ‘rate of return over cost’ in the same sense and for precisely the same purpose as I employ ‘the marginal efficiency of capital’.
(cw, vii, 140-141)
Although a fulsome and apparently straightforward recognition of precedence, Patinkin explains how Keynes’s acknowledgement of the fact of this prior development came about:
Now, in the General Theory (p. 141) Keynes himself had attributed priority for the notion of the marginal efficiency of capital to Fisher; and only recently have we (with the help of Paul Samuelson) learned the fascinating story of how this priority was brought to Keynes’ attention by Redvers Opie, at almost the last minute before publication.
(Patinkin 1982, 9)
The details of how Keynes was alerted to the fact that others had recognised in a late draft of the General Theory the identical concept within Fisher’s writing is dealt with at length as a footnote to a transcribed discussion that took place at the University of Western Ontario in October 1975. It was Samuelson who had suggested that Opie had been the one to mention to Keynes that Fisher had priority in the development of this concept. The footnote to the discussion between Patinkin and Samuelson then spells out how this issue was sorted out some forty years after the events described:
Since the Conference, Samuelson has discussed this question with Redvers Opie himself, who in reply provided him with a copy of a handwritten note (dated August 5, 1935) which R.F. Kahn sent to Opie at Oxford, and which in its entirety reads:
Guillebaud tells me that you maintain that Fisher, in his Theory of Interest (1930), has a definition identical with Keynes’ definition of the ‘marginal efficiency of capital.’ I wonder if you could let me have the reference.
A scribble at the bottom of this note indicates that Opie then referred to ‘Fisher pp. 155, 168.’
This note together with the fact that the first record of Keynes’ recognition of Fisher’s priority in this matter is in a letter which Keynes wrote to Roy Harrod three weeks later, on August 27, 1935 (jMk xiii, p. 549; Patinkin 1976 (a). 80-1) constitute fairly conclusive confirmation of Samuelson’s suggestion. Samuelson thinks that he himself may have learned of this incident from Schumpeter.
(Patinkin and Leath 1977, 89, fn.)
Keynes’s own reaction to being told others had discovered that Fisher had priority in outlining what Keynes had called the «marginal efficiency of capital» is quite interesting in its own way. In the passage below, which is from the letter to Harrod referred to by Patinkin and Leith in the above quotation, Keynes wrote:
My definition of the marginal efficiency of capital is quite different from anything to be found in [Marshall’s] work or in that of any other classical economist (except for a passage which he makes little subsequent use of in Irving Fisher’s latest book).
(cw, xiii, 549)
Thus, whether Fisher had made subsequent use of this concept or not, Keynes accepts that the concept that in the General Theory is known as the marginal efficiency of capital is exactly the same as Fisher’s «rate of return over cost». In this case, however, and unlike with McCracken, others recognised Fisher had already discussed the same concepts before they had been discussed by Keynes. Keynes therefore acknowledged Fisher’s priority which would not in all probability have occurred had Opie not drawn this parallel to the attention of others.
『ケインズ「一般理論」形成史』(浅野栄一135~6頁)によると、1933年末にはケインズが有効需要論を新しい理論体系の中心に据えることを明示的に表明するに至ったという。
この全集第19巻に収められた[1933年『一般理論』草稿#2]では、ケインズはさらに、有効需要問題を処理する際の彼の新しい分析視角のひとつを明確化している。
1933年アメリカの経済学者H.L.マクラッケンは、経済学説史に関する著書『価値論と景気循環』を出版したが、たぶんみずからの理論の想源を調べていたケインズはただちにこれを読み、そのなかのマルクス理論の解説部分からヒントを得て、草稿でつぎのように書いていた。
《協同体経済と企業家経済の間の区別はカール・マルクスによってなされた意味深長な観察と若干の関係をもっている。》
The distinction between a co-operative economy and an entrepreneur economy bears some relation to a pregnant observation made by Karl Marx,-
それによると、マルクスは、現実世界の生産の性格が、経済学者たちがしばしば想定しているようなC一M-C′(商品一貨幣一他の商品という交換)のケース――これは私的消費者の観点からのものである一一ではなく、M-C一M′(貨幣一商品一より多くの貨幣という交換)のケース――これが事業の態度である――であることを指摘したが、この指摘はケインズの想定する企業家経済を分析する際の重要な視点を提供している、というのである。
この商品と貨幣との交換過程に関する範式は、もともとマクラッケンが、剰余価値の源泉を流通過程ではなく生産過程に求めていったマルクスの説明を、『資本論』第1巻第2篇第4章「貨幣の資本への転化」の叙述に即しながら解説したものであり、マクラッケン自身はマルクスに忠実にこの範式を使用していたのであるが、ケインズは、この範式に独自の解釈を施し、それにマクラッケンの著書では触れられていなかった『資本論』第2巻の三つの資本循環に関する分析の内容を盛り込んで、つぎのように主張する。それによれば、前者の範式は古典派理論の想定する経済像を表現したものであり、そこでは、
《企業家の生産過程開始への意欲は、彼の取り分となると期待されるものの生産物表示での価値量に依存する、すなわち、彼に帰属するより多くの生産物への期待のみが彼にとっての雇用増大への誘因となる》
(The classical theory supposes that ) the readiness of the entrepreneur to start up a productive process depends on the amount of value in terms of product which he expects to fall to his share; i.e. that only an expectation of more product for himself will induce him to offer more employment.
と考えられている。しかし、
《企業家経済の下では、これは企業打算の性格についての間違った分析である。企業家の関心は、彼の取り分となる生産物の量ではなく、貨幣の量にある。彼は、産出量を増加させることによってその貨幣利潤を増加させることができると期待するならば、たとえこの利潤が以前よりも少ない生産物量を示すとしても、その産出量を増加させるであろう。》
[ But] in an entrepreneur economy this is a wrong analysis of the nature of business calculation. An entrepreneur is interested, not in the amount of product, but in the amount of money which will fall to his share. He will increase his output if by so doing he expects to increase his money profit, even though this profit represents a smaller quantity of product than before.
…
ケインズ全集・J.M.K Vol.XXIX,p. 81~2参照 [Keynes (1979), pp.81-2.]
マルクスのケインズへの影響はカレツキと似ている。バーナード・ショーへの手紙におけるマルクス批判などは擬態だったということになる。邦訳を望みたい。
『ケインズ「一般理論」形成史』(浅野栄一135~6頁)によると、1933年末には
ケインズが有効需要論を新しい理論体系の中心に据えることを明示的に表明す
るに至ったという。
この全集第29巻に収められた[1933年『一般理論』草稿#2]では、
ケインズはさらに、有効需要問題を処理する際の彼の新しい分析視角のひとつ
を明確化している。
1933年アメリカの経済学者H.L.マクラッケンは、経済学説史に関す
る著書『価値論と景気循環』を出版したが、たぶんみずからの理論の想源を調
べていたケインズはただちにこれを読み、そのなかのマルクス理論の解説部分
からヒントを得て、草稿でつぎのように書いていた。
《協同体経済と企業家経済の間の区別はカール・マルクスによってなされた意
味深長な観察と若干の関係をもっている。》
それによると、マルクスは、現実世界の生産の性格が、経済学者たちがしばし
ば想定しているようなC一M-C′(商品一貨幣一他の商品という交換)のケ
ース――これは私的消費者の観点からのものである一一ではなく、M-C一M
′(貨幣一商品一より多くの貨幣という交換)のケース――これが事業の態度
である――であることを指摘したが、この指摘はケインズの想定する企業家経
済を分析する際の重要な視点を提供している、というのである。
この商品と貨幣との交換過程に関する範式は、もともとマクラッケンが、剰
余価値の源泉を流通過程ではなく生産過程に求めていったマルクスの説明を、
『資本論』第1巻第2篇第4章「貨幣の資本への転化」の叙述に即しながら解
説したものであり、マクラッケン自身はマルクスに忠実にこの範式を使用して
いたのであるが、ケインズは、この範式に独自の解釈を施し、それにマクラッ
ケンの著書では触れられていなかった『資本論』第2巻の三つの資本循環に関
する分析の内容を盛り込んで、つぎのように主張する。それによれば、前者の
範式は古典派理論の想定する経済像を表現したものであり、そこでは、
《企業家の生産過程開始への意欲は、彼の取り分となると期待されるものの生
産物表示での価値量に依存する、すなわち、彼に帰属するより多くの生産物へ
の期待のみが彼にとっての雇用増大への誘因となる》
と考えられている。しかし、
《企業家経済の下では、これは企業打算の性格についての間違った分析である
。企業家の関心は、彼の取り分となる生産物の量ではなく、貨幣の量にある。
彼は、産出量を増加させることによってその貨幣利潤を増加させることができ
ると期待するならば、たとえこの利潤が以前よりも少ない生産物量を示すとし
ても、その産出量を増加させるであろう。》
(参照:ケインズ全集・J.M.K Vol.XXIX,p. 81~2)
マルクスのケインズへの影響はカレツキと似ている。バーナード・ショーへの
手紙におけるマルクス批判*(邦訳ケインズ全集28巻)などは擬態だったということ
になる。邦訳を望む。
13,14の補遺だから29はそのあとか。14は2016年邦訳が出た。
*
邦訳ケインズ全集28:55頁より
バーナード・ショー宛て、1934年12月2日
…
私の『資本論(Das Kapital)』についての感じ方は、『コーラン』についてのそれと同じです。私は、そ
れが歴史的に重要であることを承知しており、また多くの人々ーーそのすべてが馬鹿者ではありませんが、そこ
に或る種の「千年の岩(Rock of Ages)」(訳注:賛美歌)と霊感の内包を見出していることも知っています。しかもなおそれに目
を通すとき、それがこのような効果を持ち得ると自らに説明することが出来ないのです。その退屈で時代遅れのアカ
デミックな議論は、目的のための材料として、余りにも不適切なように見えます。それにしても、私が申し上げたよ
うに、『コーラン』についてと正に同じものを感じます。いったい如何にして、これらの書物の双方が、世界の半ば
をめぐって、戦禍を齎(もたら)し得たのでしようか? そのことが、私に衝撃を与えます。私の理解には、明らかに、或る種
の欠陥があるでしよう。あなたは、『資本論』と『コーラン』の双方を信じますか。或いは「資本論」だけですか。
しかし、後者の社会学的価値がどうあれ、その現代的な経済学的価値は(時折の、しかし非建設的で非連続的な洞察
のひらめきは別として)ゼロです。あなたは、それを読み直す約束をされますか、もし私がそうするとして....?
ご健康を念じつつ。
常にあなたの
J・M・ K
以下、61~2頁より
ジヨージ・バーナード・ショウ宛て、1935年1月1日
親愛なるバーナード・ショウ
お手紙ありがとうございます、私は努力してあなたの言葉を心に留めましよう。あなたが言われることにはーー通
常そうですから何かがあるに違いありません。しかし、私は、先週、出版されたばかりのマルクスーエンゲルス
往復書簡集を読みつつ、昔のカール・マルクスに別の光を当ててみたのですが、大きな進展はありませんでした。私
は二人の中ではエンゲルスの方を好みます。私は、彼らが研究遂行の或る方法と執筆上のひどい仕方ーーその双方を、
彼らの後継者たちが忠実に維持してきたのですがーーを発明したのを見ることができます。しかし、もしあなたが私
に、彼らは経済の難問に対する解決の手がかりを発見したのだとおっしやるなら、やはり私は困惑しますーー私は時
代遅れの議論以外の何ものをも見出し得ないのです。
しかしながら、私の心境を理解して頂くためには、私が、世界の人々の経済問題についての考え方を恐らく今
ただちにではなく、向こう10年間のうちに大きく変革すると思われる経済理論に関する書物を書いていると自
ら確信していることを、あなたに知って頂かなければなりません。私の新しい理論が正しく理解され、政治や感情や
情熱と混ぜ合わされたとき、行動や事象に及ぼす影響において、どのような最終的結果を齎すか、予見することはで
きません。しかし大きな変化が起こるでしょうし、なかんずく、マルクシズムのリカード的基礎は打ち壊されるで
しょう。私は、このことを、現時点であなたが、或いは他の人々が、信じて下さるとは期待し得ません。しかし、私
自身としては、私の言っていることは単なる希望ではないと思っていますーー心中、私は完全に確信しているのです。
リディアが、あなたとシャーロットによろしく、と。
常にあなたの
J・M・ K‘But whatever the sociological value of [Das Kapital] I am sure that its contemporary economic value (apart from occasional but inconstructive [sic] and discontinuous flashes of insight) is nil’ (1934, JMK to George Bernard Shaw, 2 December, quoted in Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes, vol. 2 (1992), p. 520).
‘To understand my state of mind … you have to know that I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory, which will largely revolutionise … the way the world thinks about economic problems. When my new theory has been duly assimilated and mixed with politics and feelings and passions, I can’t predict what the upshot will be in its effects on actions and affairs. But there will be a great change, and, in particular, the Ricardian foundations of Marxism will be knocked away’ (1935, JMK to George Bernard Shaw, 1 January, quoted in Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes, vol. 2, pp. 520–21).
George Bernard Shaw (left) and John Maynard Keynes (right),
at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, U.K., 1936
John Maynard Keynes (原著), ケインズ (著), 柿原 和夫 (翻訳)
以下同書103頁より
協力経済と企業家経済の区別は、カール·マルクスの萌芽的観察と幾分の関係がある。もっともその後、
彼はこの観察をきわめて非論理的にしか利用しなかった。彼は、現実の世界における生産の性質は、しば
しば経済学者が想定するようにC-M-C、すなわち別の商品(あるいは労力)を入手するために、ある商品
(あるいは労力)を貨幣と交換する場合ではない、と指摘した。それは私的消費者の視点ではあり得る。
しかしそれはビジネスの態度ではない。ビジネスの態度はM-C-Mの場合、つまり、いっそう多くの貨幣を
入手するために貨幣を手放して商品(あるいは労力)を入手するのである(*)。この点は以下の理由がある
ために重要である。
代理論との関係でマルクスの理論のこの部分が引用されている。M'がMを超過する部分はマルクスの剰余
価値の源泉である。次のことは経済理論の歴史における一つの珍品である。古典的な公式 C-M-Cに公式
M-C-M'をいろいろな形態で向かい合わせてきた過去一〇〇年間の異端者たちは、実際の経験の中で次のど
ちらが支配的な時期に暮らしていたかに従って、M'はいつも必ず Mを超過しなければならないと信じるか、
あるいは Mはいつも必ずM'を超過しなければならないと信じるかのどちらかをとる傾向があった。資本主
義体制は必然的に搾取的特徴を持つと信じるマルクスたちは M'が超過するのが不可避であると主張する。
他方で、デフレーションと過少雇用に向かう固有の傾向があると信じるホブソン、あるいはフォスターと
キャッチングス、あるいはダグラス少佐は、Mの超過が不可避であると主張する。しかしながらマルクスが、
徐々に強度を増す一連の危機によってか、あるいは企業家の倒産と過少雇用によって、連続的な M'超過が
中断されるのは不可避であろうと付け加えたとき、その中断の間にはたぶん M が超過しなければならず、
彼は中間の真理に近づいていた。私自身の議論は、もしそれが受け入れられるならば、古典派経済学者たち
を依然として MとM'はつねに等しいとの信念で孤立したままにしておき、少なくともマルクスの追随者と
ダグラス少佐の追随者とを融和する効果を持つだろう!
104頁
古典派理論は次のように想定する。企業家が生産過程に着手するのは、自分の取り分になると予想する生産物で測った価値の量に依存する、と。すなわち、自分自身に帰属すると予想する生産物が多ければ多いほど、いっそう多くの雇用をするのである。しかし企業家経済においては、企業計算の性質に関するこの分析は間違いである。企業家は、生産物の数量ではなく、その取り分になるだろう貨幣の数量に関心を寄せるのである.産出量を増やせば彼の貨幣利潤を増やせると企業家が予想するならば、たとえその利潤が以前よりも少ない生産物数量であるとしても、産出量を増やすだろう。
このことの説明は明白である。産出量を増やすために生産諸要素を雇用すると、企業家は生産物ではなくて貨幣の支出(disbursement)に巻き込まれる。企業家が一雇用するかどうかを決定する際に選択できるのは、ある用途に貨幣を使うか、それとも別の用途に使うか、あるいはまったく使わないかのいずれかである。彼は(手持ちあるいは借入れにより)一〇〇ポンドを使用できるとする。彼は、 一〇〇ポンドを使用するとき、その一〇〇ポンドに対する利子を含む可変費用を控除した後に、 一〇〇ポンドを上回る貨幣に替えることができるだろうと予想するなら、その一〇〇ポンドを使用するだろう。彼が直面するただ一つの問題は、 一〇〇ポンドを使ういろいろな用途の中から、貨幣で測って最大の利潤を生み出すだろう用途を選ぶことである。将来の価格は、それが予見される限りで、持越し費用および所与の商品の現物価格と先物価格を関係づけるその間の生産機会をあれこれ考慮したうえで、すでに現行価格に織り込まれていることを覚えておかなければならない。したがって、資産保有者が推計する貨幣および既存諸資産保有の相対的有利さを、現物・先物価格の構造がすでに均衡させている、と想定しなければならない.したがって、貨幣を使って生産過程に着手することの貨幣で測った有利さが増すならば、それは企業家がより多く一雇用するのを促進するだろう。ある状況ともう一つの状況を比べると、ある状況のほうがもう一つの状況よりも貨幣利潤が大きくて生産量は少ないけれども雇用量は多いことが起こり得るだろう。企業家は、獲得するであろう生産量によってではなく、現物・先物価格の構造全体を考慮に人れたときの貨幣使用の諸機会によって導かれるからである。
こうして、古典派理論を企業家経済に適用しようとすると、古典派理論はいわば両端でわれわれを失望させる。なぜなら、企業家の労働需要が企業家に帰属するであろう生産物の分け前に依存するというのは正しくないし、また、労働供給が労働に帰属するであろう生産物の分け前に依存するというのも正しくないからである。これらの根本的な乖離が最初にあるために古典派理論から出発できないのであり、議論がさらに進んだ段階では古典派理論の結論を移り気な企業家経済に適合させられないのである。
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