Robert Skidelsky's Keynes: The Return of the Master shows how the great economist's ideas not only explain why the current financial crisis occurred - but are our best way out. 'One would expect brokers to be wrong. If, in addition to their other inside advantages, they were capable of good advice, clearly they would have retired long ago with a large fortune'
John Maynard Keynes When unbridled capitalism falters, is there an alternative? The twentieth century's most influential economist tells us that there is. John Maynard Keynes argued that an unmanaged market system is inherently...

In 1930 the great economist Keynes predicted that, over the next century, income would rise steadily, people's basic needs would be met and no one would have to work more than fifteen hours a week. Why was he wrong? Robert and Edward Skidelsky argue that wealth is not - or should not be - an end in itself, but a means to 'the good life'. Tracing the concept from Aristotle to the present, they show how far modern life has strayed from that ideal. They reject the idea that there is any single measure of human progress, whether GDP or 'happiness', and instead describe the seven elements which,...

The dominant view in economics is that money and government should play only a minor role in economic life. Money, it is claimed, is more than a medium of exchange; and economic outcomes are best left to the invisible hand of the market. Tracing the establishment of this orthodoxy and the challenges posed to it since the Great Depression of 1929-32, Robert Skidelsky shows how - unlike then - the 2008 global financial has not led to any new policy paradigm. Once the crisis had been overcome - by Keynesian measures taken in desperation - the pre-crash orthodoxy was reinstated, undermined but...