Resumo

THIRLWALL, Anthony P.. The Relevance of Keynes Today : The Unemployment in Rich and Poor Countries. Inv. Econ [online]. 2007, vol.66, n.262, pp.15-58. ISSN 0185-1667.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that Keynes's ideas formulated in the first half of the 20th century are as relevant today as they ever were in thinking about the nature of unemployment and how to tackle it in both rich and poor countries. But the nature of unemployment differs between the two sets of countries, and so does the challenge. In the rich developed countries, it is the concept of involuntary unemployment that needs resurrecting and stressing, and the important role of demand management. In the poor developing countries, it is the role of government in raising the rate of capital accumulation, and investing in labour intensive projects, which is of prime importance. The paper discusses the author's interest and work on unemployment over the last forty years and the challenge of employment creation in both rich and poor countries; it reminds readers of pre-Keynesian (classical) employment theory; it applies the relevance of Keynes's concept of involuntary unemployment to the high rate of unemployment in the core countries of the European Union particularly since the signing of the Maastrich Treaty in 1992; it is critical of the idea that the high rate of unemployment somehow constitutes a 'natural' rate and has nothing to do with a lack of demand, and it considers the role of deficit financing and the inflation tax in the context of developing countries where the major task of employment creation is to raise the rate of capital accumulation and to move towards the use of more labour intensive techniques of production simultaneously.

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