John maynard keynes

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes was born in Cambridge on June 5, 1883, in a very intellectual family of the time. His father, John Neville Keynes, was a professor of political economy and logic of University of Cambridge, who also came to occupy a top management position in the same institution. His mother, the daughter of a minister, was one of the first women to attend this university.

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe they to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” John Maynard Keynes.

Because of his intelligence and knowledge from his parents, he was accepted at Eton College, where showed, among others, his talent for mathematics. From Eton went to King's College in Cambridge, where he obtained his diploma in 1905. It was considered the most brilliant student of Alfred Marshall and AC Pigou, the two most notable Cambridge economists. Influenced by Alfred Marshall his interest in mathematics has decreased and economics and politics has increased.

In 1906, he got the second place in a competition for the recruitment of Civil Servants (Body of Senior Officials of the Empire), although, ironically, from a mediocre note in economics. He was then placed in the Indian Office (Ministry of Indies), in Whitehall, where he worked until 1908.

A restructuring of the Department of Economy of Cambridge led him to resign from his post and return to Cambridge to be a teacher until 1915. He was part of King's College until the end of his life.

Author of many articles in various publications, Keynes was a Director of Economic Journal in 1911, and secretary of the Royal Economic Society.

From his experience in the Indian Office he published in 1913, Indian Currency and Finance (Indian’s Money and Finance)