Random House Trade Paperbacks The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes

This book rekindled my love for Economics (and Economic History). While Keynes’ life memoir ends about half way through the book, the latter half brings to relevance how far ahead he was of his time. Ironically, his policies remain alive in the largest economy in the world, while his home country grapples with what a future outside of a Keynesian utopia will look like.

Una lectura pertinente en el contexto de los impactos económicos provocados por la pandemia COVID 19.

As it should be, today’s news is filled with speculations about how we’ll emerge from the economic shocks resulting from the coronavirus. What should be done to recover safely, sooner and equitably? The stakes are huge of course, and the proposed remedies quite divergent. For example, do the green shoots of early recovery mean fiscal and monetary policies have worked and can now be eased off? Or are delayed demand disruptions sure to lead to prolonged years of slow growth and high unemployment unless considerably more fiscal stimulus is forthcoming?There’s rarely been a better time for an enjoyable way to vastly improve your macroeconomic literacy. You may be among generations of American college students who last saw the whole picture through the numbing pages of one of the nineteen consecutive editions of Samuelson’s textbook on macroeconomics 101. You probably came away intellectually sidelined: concluding either that eventually everything reaches equilibrium on its own or that answers are too elusive, better left to the powerful computers of math quants.What Samuelson didn’t tell us is that macroeconomics is inherently political. There’s nothing preordained about its outcomes or distributive effects. No one formula solves all problems. Economic policy inevitably is a key determinant of the actual shape our democracy takes.Many of us are in search of practical solutions that have actually worked on-the-ground in prior tumultuous times akin to ours. We are not looking to mathematically elegant theories that attempt to pose economics as a precise science like physics, rather than what it is: a rough and tumble set of rather crude value-laden tools that work with far less precision and need constant adaptations according to their evolving consequences, unintended as often as intended.What fundamentally can be done and what different choices made since World War I have led to – is now readily available to readers of The Price of Peace. The story is told in an enjoyable, engaging way, like reading a good novel. Quite different from the surplus of one-sided economic articles available, about as appetizing as chewing styrofoam. What you may have thought must surely be a tedious and mathematical story, Mr. Carter tells with verisimilitude; bringing the art of the possible to life with uncommon clarity and interest; and addressing the full-of-surprises ways it has often been mislaid, maligned and misapplied. Readers will emerge far better equipped to follow, participate in and evaluate what steps our various political leaders have on offer, take and report out in attempting to strengthen our current economy and dispense its rewards. Zachary Carter’s riveting new book provides vitally needed context on where we’ve been, what we’ve done and what were the consequences of the major movements in macroeconomics policy since WWI.This book is not another hymnal to the world views of either political party. Presidents who missed the ball include Kennedy, Clinton and Obama (the hows and whys are what’s important). Laissez faire, free enterprise and invisible handers also come up to bat as presidential designated hitters; their swings and scores are analyzed perceptively.At the center of the story is John Maynard Keynes, wonderfully well-rounded, eager to learn from what’s not working, ready to fight the good fight, often lose, then return with optimism to find sharper diagnoses and better treatments. Either in the flesh or in the fray of ideas, Keynes was ever-present at all the major turning points of war, wealth and politics throughout the twentieth century.He is much alive again today. Enjoy reading here what his learnings and remedies really were, rather than muddle through countless circulating articles; many of which misinterpret what he believed we should be doing in times like these.You may even want to start with the acknowledgements section for a taste of Mr. Carter’s research journey and his engaging humanity. I hope we’ll hear much more from him for years to come and would enjoy meeting him one day.Thomas W. Moloney

This is one of those rarity that would get a 6 stars rating, if possible.I am not a professional in this subject (neither history nor economics) but I have read several books on the history of economics, economic crashes, exuberances and depressions, economic theories, globalizations and all flavors of liberalisms, but this book will tower as #1 in my section of such books in my library for a long time to come.First, it is exceptionally clear with a language that even non-specialist (like me) understand from cover to cover.Second, the biography of the central figure in the book is simply magistral and deeply humane: rarely people are dissected, explained, analyzed, criticized and loved as done for JMK by the author in this book.Third, the author uses a style that reminds me of another older and beautiful book, A Distant Mirror by B. Tuchman, where the main figure is perfectly inserted in the dramas of his period to create a unique narrative of a human being inserted and explained in his historical milieu, not in an immaterial cloud of philosophical principles and abstract theories or, even worse, boring historical events.Fourth, despite masqueraded under the excuse of a biography, the book also is actually an excellent review of the political choices of the last century that have shaped our world and have created our present condition. If there is one thing that comes up brilliantly uncovered and explained by the book is that there is no economics without political choices.I can only most warmly recommend reading attentively this book which has helped me enormously to understand the period I am leaving in and how we got here.

Muy interesante.

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