|
I have called this book the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, placing the emphasis on theprefix general. The object of such a title is to contrast the character of my arguments and conclusions with thoseof the classical theory of the subject, upon which I was brought up and which dominates the economic thought,both practical and theoretical, of the governing and academic classes of this generation, as it has for a hundredyears past. I shall argue that the postulates of the classical theory are applicable to a special case only and not to the general case, the situation which it assumes being a limiting point of the possible positions of equilibrium.
Moreover, the characteristics of the special case assumed by the classical theory happen not to be those of theeconomic society in which we actually live, with the result that its teaching is misleading and disastrous if we attempt to apply it to the facts of experience.
比如说,《通论》第一篇第一章有这样一段,魏埙翻译如下:“我命名此书为《就业、利息和货币通论》,着重点在“通”字。这一命名的目的在于,要把我的论点和结论与古典学派的理论曾哺育我成长,曾在过去一百年里在实践上和理论上支配过这一代统治阶级和学术界的经济思想。”
|