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Writing assignment on John Maynard Keynes, Economic Possibilities for our GrandchildrenIn his essay, which was written around the peak of the Great Depression, Keynes argues that due to
developments in production technology and the accumulation of wealth it will no longer be necessary
to work very long hours in a generation or two. According to Keynes, mankind would have solved its
“economic problem” within a century, so that a normal working week would not need to be longer
than fifteen hours. Well, those 100 years have almost past, and it seems that Keynes was wrong:
people still “work” long hours. But was he?
Questions to better understand Keynes’ Essay
1. Why does Keynes say that “we are suffering just now from a bad attack of economic
pessimism”?
2. What is Keynes trying to argue in this essay?
3. Explain which factors will lead to technological unemployment. Why do they lead to
technological unemployment?
4. What does Keynes mean with mankind’s ‘economic problem’? How is his definition of this
problem different from that of ‘The Great Economic Problem’ as we studied it in the course?
Does Keynes’ deny scarcity or resources, you think?
5. What are Keynes’ thoughts about leisure and the ‘the art of life itself’? How do they relate to
work?
6. What assumptions does Keynes (implicitly) make about access to accumulated wealth that
would reduce the necessity to work? To what extent is that assumption reasonable?
7. In what way should economics become like dentistry? What does Keynes mean with this
somewhat provocative statement, you think?
Short essay question
In this assignment, you are asked to write a critical essay on Keynes’ classic paper. Write an essay in
which you answer the question to what extent Keynes’ predictions came true for modern, Western
countries. On Canvas you will find the papers by Autor and Stiglitz (without the technical appendix).
They are meant to get your thinking going. The article written by Stiglitz (2008) offers conceptual
“reflections” on Keynes’ essay. The other background article is by Autor (2015) and asks a related
question “Why are there still so many jobs?”, despite fast developments in workplace automation. You
should at least use one of them to shape your ideas for this writing assignment.
Structure of the essay
Below we will describe the structure of the essay. In step 2 you will find which aspects you will have to
touch upon in your essay. Read them carefully!
Note that your arguments should clearly be linked to the work of Keynes. Use the papers of
Stiglitz and/or Autor as source for arguments on why Keynes’ views and predictions were or
weren’t correct, you think.
Step 1: The introduction
• Briefly describe the essence of Keynes’ essay.
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