Introduction

Summary

Poverty of Post Keynesian price theory

If one is going to write a book on Post Keynesian price theory, it would, from the reader's viewpoint, be nice to know what “Post Keynesian economics” is. However, this is the wrong way of looking at it. Post Keynesian economics is not a set creed which can be looked up in some dictionary of economic terms; nor can it be defined as simply as anything which is anti-neoclassical economics, for coherence does count. At the present time, Post Keynesian economics is rather what Post Keynesian economists say it is. Thus, whereas it would appear that Post Keynesian economics is in a state of anarchy, it is in fact not so, because Post Keynesian economists have a common reference point – that of engaging in work which

moves the Keynesian analysis forward to encompass more realistic analyses of pricing, distribution, investment and dynamic growth paths, both long-run steady state and short-period disequilibrium, than are to be found within The General Theory; and the work of those post-Keynesian economists like yourself [Gardiner Means] can be distinguished from that of the pre-Keynesians who still posit 19th Century institutional arrangements and market processes.

(Eichner, 1978am, p. 2)

Surveyors of Post Keynesian economics have consequently concentrated on the contributions of specific individuals, the “paradigms” of ideas on which they draw, and their attempts to move the Keynesian analysis forward.