'In this remarkable work Robert Skidelsky unites his experience knowledge and talents in a
sweeping account of money and power' James K. GalbraithThe dominant view in economics is that
money and government should play only a minor role in economic life. Money it is claimed is
nothing more than a medium of exchange and economic outcomes are best left to the 'invisible
hand' of the market. The view taken in this important new book is that the omnipresence of
uncertainty make money and government essential features of any market economy. One reason we
need money is because we don't know what the future will bring. Government - good government -
makes the future more predictable and therefore reduces this kind of demand for money.After
Adam Smith orthodoxy persistently espoused non-intervention but the Great Depression of
1929-32 stopped the artificers of orthodox economics in their tracks. A precarious balance of
forces between government employers and trade unions enabled Keynesian economics to emerge as
the new policy paradigm of the Western world. However the stagflation of the 1970s led to the
rejection of Keynesian policy and a return to small-state neoclassical orthodoxy. Thirty years
later the 2008 global financial crash was severe enough to have shaken the re-vamped classical
orthodoxy but curiously this did not happen. Once the crisis had been overcome - by
Keynesian measures taken in desperation - the pre-crash orthodoxy was reinstated undermined
but unbowed. Since 2008 no new 'big idea' has emerged and orthodoxy has maintained its sway
enacting punishing austerity agendas that leave us with a still-anaemic global economy.This
book aims to familiarise the reader with essential elements of Keynes's 'big idea'. By showing
that much of economic orthodoxy is far from being the hard science it claims to be it aims to
embolden the next generation of economists to break free from their conceptual prisons and
afford money and government the starring roles in the economic drama that they deserve.
