Keynes's Idealism: A Critical Evaluation of Athol Fitzgibbons'sKeynes's Vision: A New Political Economy

Abstract

Vision by Athol Fitzgibbons is part of a new surge of scholarship reinterpreting economics based on his early work in philosophy. Fitzgibbons argues that economists have considered Keynes inconsistent and have tended to ignore parts of his theory and method because of their failure to recognize his idealism. In particular, the truncation and packaging of economics into IS/LM analysis totally ignored his moral philosophy and led gradually to the trivialization of his contributions to economics. Fitzgibbons asserts that economics is part of a logically coherent structure of ideas embedded in his moral and political philosophy. He characterizes Keynes as a Platonist, an idealist who saw human existence and history in terms of a duality: Keynes's vision was partly that all worldly affairs are subject to change to a possibly large degree, or to what he called 'objective chance'; but it also pointed to an independent sphere of ideals, appreciable to the mind, by which we might steer at cross-current (Fitzgibbons, 1988, pp. 49-50). Fitzgibbons considers moral philosophy important because vision pointed to a new political economy. He claims that Keynes consciously created an alternative to Marxism and laissez-faire which, in fact, is the only comprehensive alternative we have. In this regard, Fitzgibbons argues several interrelated points. First, for Keynes, economic analysis was part of the larger project of rational governance ? of promoting human progress based on universal ideals. Second, Keynes wrote in the pre-modern, pre-scientific tradition of moral philosophy which he revitalized by introducing the effect of economic growth on the possibilities for humanity. Third, Keynes created a method of analysis which was consistent with his idealism, emphasizing intuition and practical reason based on probabilities. Fourth, Keynes considered methodologies employed in the natural