Keynes (of Tilton), John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron 1883-1946
English economist, pioneer of the theory of full employment

John Maynard Keynes was born in Cambridge, the son of the Cambridge logician and political economist John Neville Keynes (1852-1949). He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he lectured in economics and became one of the 'Bloomsbury group'. He was at the India Office (1906-08) and in 1913, as a member of the Royal Commission on Indian Finance and Currency, published his first book on this subject. In both world wars he was an adviser to the Treasury, which he represented at the Versailles Peace Conference, although he strongly opposed the terms of the draft treaty and thus resigned.

He set out his views against the harsh economic terms imposed on Germany in the Versailles Treaty in The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), written with the encouragement of Jan Smuts. In 1921 Treatise of Probability appeared, in which he explored the logical relationships between calling something 'highly probable' and a 'justifiable induction'. In 1923 he became chairman of the Liberal periodical Nation, and pamphleteered his controversial views on European reconstruction, strongly attacking Winston Churchill's restoration of the gold standard (1925).

The unemployment crisis inspired his two great works, A Treatise on Money (1930) and the revolutionary General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). He argued that full employment was not an automatic condition, expounded a new theory of the rate of interest, and set out the principles underlying the flows of income and expenditure. He also fought the Treasury view that unemployment was incurable. His views on a planned economy influenced Franklin D Roosevelt's 'New Deal' administration.

He married Lydia Lopokova, a ballerina with the Diaghilev company, and with her helped to found the Vic-Wells ballet. He also financed the establishment of the Arts Theatre in Cambridge. In 1943 he proposed the international clearing union, and in 1944-46 he played a leading part in the formulation of the Bretton Woods agreements, the establishment of the International Monetary Fund, and the troublesome, abortive negotiations for a continuation of American Lend-Lease. He died just prior to being appointed to the Order of Merit. He also wrote Essays in Persuasion (1931) and Essays in Biography (1933).

Bibliography: Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes (vol 1, 1983; vol 2, 1992); Hyman P Minsky, John Maynard Keynes (1975); Roy F Harrod, The Life of John Maynard Keynes (1951).