Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: I read Keynes' "General Theory" as a high-school sophomore in 1970. Even as a high-school student, I was able to see the central analytical error. The key Keynesian argument is that there can be an imbalance between savings and investment: savers may try to save more than they invest, in effect taking money out of circulation and thereby throwing the economy into depression. Of course, they have to do something with this money, presumably holding it as cash in some form. Therefore, if you follow through the analysis to the end, Keynes is saying that people are trying to hold more cash than is available: the demand of savers to hold savings in cash rather than as investments is what causes depressions. Keynes and his followers accept this conclusion: the term which came to be used was that there was a "liquidity trap," the desire to hold more cash ("liquidity") than was actually supplied in the economy is what produces depressions. However, as soon as the matter is phrased in terms of an imbalance between the supply and demand of money, anyone who passed economics 101 should remember that market economies are _very_ good at equilibrating supply and demand. If the current demand for a good is too high, then the current market value is too low, and a rise in the market value of that commodity will solve the problem. It works for money, too. A rise in the value of money is called "price deflation," and economists have known for centuries that price deflation does indeed naturally occur in depressions. As the general price level falls, the existing supply of money becomes more valuable -- in effect, the real supply of money becomes greater. It becomes more tempting to spend one's cash on now cheaper goods or investments. Price deflation, if allowed to occur by governments, cures liquidity traps. I figured this out for myself as a high-school student (there is an alternative but equivalent analysis based on "dimensional analysis" which, as a budding physicist, I found especially cogent). I was not of course the first to work this out: even _before_ Keynes published the "General Theory," the British economist A. C. Pigou had worked through this analysis and the matter is often therefore referred to as the "Pigou effect." Since Pigou, various eminent economists have worked out the mechanism in great detail with careful mathematical analyses, but the basic idea is freshman economics. When I entered college, I found out that the advanced graduate-level "macro" books did indeed let the secret out that Keynes' analysis was wrong. It was only undergrads, politicians, and the general public that were expected to believe the Keynesian fallacy. So why the decades of lying? Just as the Communist governments of the old Soviet empire needed Karl Marx's goofy economics theories and laughable philosophical scribblings in order to prop up their own corrupt regimes, so also the rising mid-twentieth-century predatory military-university-government-industrial complex in Western nations needed an ideology to justify the corporatist-socialist regimes it was creating. Keynes' prescriptions for monetary inflation, deficit spending, rejection of the gold standard, and high levels of government spending and taxation were tailor-made for the democratic-socialist welfare/warfare states then being erected in various Western nations. As corporate liberals are so fond of saying, Keynes did indeed "save capitalism" if by "capitalism" one means not free-market capitalism but rather the corrupt crony capitalism under which we now all live. Keynes himself knew this of course. The infamous statement he made in the introduction to the German translation of the "General Theory" ("theory of aggregate production, which is the point of the following book, nevertheless can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state than the theory of production and distribution of a given production put forth under conditions of free competition and a large degree of laissez-faire") obviously does not prove that Keynes was sympathetic to Nazism. But it does show that Keynes rightly recognized that his proposals were of great potential value for the oppressive political regimes that were being created during the twentieth century. Even though Keynesian theories are now intellectually discredited "flat-earth" economics, they live on because they serve a political need. Even conservative politicians nowadays often spout Keynesian nostrums ("stimulating demand" via tax cuts or monetary growth) rather than make the painful acknowledgement that it is the corporate-socialist economic system under which we live which is the problem. No regime lasts forever. Eventually, the present corporatist-collectivist regime will collapse, probably when the majority of the human race figures out how to free itself from the current American geopolitical hegemony. At that point, Keynes will be universally viewed as the economically incompetent charlatan that he actually was. (For a more detailed analysis of the Keynesian system, I recommend Henry Hazlitt's classic "Failure of the New Economics" and the collection of critical essays Hazlitt edited, "Critics of Keynesian Economics." For an analysis that goes beyond Keynes in analyzing the process which causes the initial imbalance in the investment sector and the resulting liquidity crisis, see Murray Rothbard's "America's Great Depression." Keynes purported to believe that the triggering forces of the investment crisis were irrational and inexplicable "animal spirits." Rothbard shows that, on the contrary, these forces can be rationally explained and understood: in essence, it is incompetent financial policy, of the sort Alan Greenspan has provided in the last decade, which causes economic crises. Milton Friedman's and Anna Schwartz's famed "The Great Contraction" focuses solely on the monetary aspects of the Great Depression, thereby missing the causative process in the investment sector.)
Rating: 
Summary: The savior of "capitalism" or corporatist liberalism?
Review: I read Keynes' "General Theory" as a high-school sophomore in 1970. Even as a high-school student, I was able to see the central analytical error. The key Keynesian argument is that there can be an imbalance between savings and investment: savers may try to save more than they invest, in effect taking money out of circulation and thereby throwing the economy into depression. Of course, they have to do something with this money, presumably holding it as cash in some form. Therefore, if you follow through the analysis to the end, Keynes is saying that people are trying to hold more cash than is available: the demand of savers to hold savings in cash rather than as investments is what causes depressions. Keynes and his followers accept this conclusion: the term which came to be used was that there was a "liquidity trap," the desire to hold more cash ("liquidity") than was actually supplied in the economy is what produces depressions. However, as soon as the matter is phrased in terms of an imbalance between the supply and demand of money, anyone who passed economics 101 should remember that market economies are _very_ good at equilibrating supply and demand. If the current demand for a good is too high, then the current market value is too low, and a rise in the market value of that commodity will solve the problem. It works for money, too. A rise in the value of money is called "price deflation," and economists have known for centuries that price deflation does indeed naturally occur in depressions. As the general price level falls, the existing supply of money becomes more valuable -- in effect, the real supply of money becomes greater. It becomes more tempting to spend one's cash on now cheaper goods or investments. Price deflation, if allowed to occur by governments, cures liquidity traps. I figured this out for myself as a high-school student (there is an alternative but equivalent analysis based on "dimensional analysis" which, as a budding physicist, I found especially cogent). I was not of course the first to work this out: even _before_ Keynes published the "General Theory," the British economist A. C. Pigou had worked through this analysis and the matter is often therefore referred to as the "Pigou effect." Since Pigou, various eminent economists have worked out the mechanism in great detail with careful mathematical analyses, but the basic idea is freshman economics. When I entered college, I found out that the advanced graduate-level "macro" books did indeed let the secret out that Keynes' analysis was wrong. It was only undergrads, politicians, and the general public that were expected to believe the Keynesian fallacy. So why the decades of lying? Just as the Communist governments of the old Soviet empire needed Karl Marx's goofy economics theories and laughable philosophical scribblings in order to prop up their own corrupt regimes, so also the rising mid-twentieth-century predatory military-university-government-industrial complex in Western nations needed an ideology to justify the corporatist-socialist regimes it was creating. Keynes' prescriptions for monetary inflation, deficit spending, rejection of the gold standard, and high levels of government spending and taxation were tailor-made for the democratic-socialist welfare/warfare states then being erected in various Western nations. As corporate liberals are so fond of saying, Keynes did indeed "save capitalism" if by "capitalism" one means not free-market capitalism but rather the corrupt crony capitalism under which we now all live. Keynes himself knew this of course. The infamous statement he made in the introduction to the German translation of the "General Theory" ("theory of aggregate production, which is the point of the following book, nevertheless can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state than the theory of production and distribution of a given production put forth under conditions of free competition and a large degree of laissez-faire") obviously does not prove that Keynes was sympathetic to Nazism. But it does show that Keynes rightly recognized that his proposals were of great potential value for the oppressive political regimes that were being created during the twentieth century. Even though Keynesian theories are now intellectually discredited "flat-earth" economics, they live on because they serve a political need. Even conservative politicians nowadays often spout Keynesian nostrums ("stimulating demand" via tax cuts or monetary growth) rather than make the painful acknowledgement that it is the corporate-socialist economic system under which we live which is the problem. No regime lasts forever. Eventually, the present corporatist-collectivist regime will collapse, probably when the majority of the human race figures out how to free itself from the current American geopolitical hegemony. At that point, Keynes will be universally viewed as the economically incompetent charlatan that he actually was. (For a more detailed analysis of the Keynesian system, I recommend Henry Hazlitt's classic "Failure of the New Economics" and the collection of critical essays Hazlitt edited, "Critics of Keynesian Economics." For an analysis that goes beyond Keynes in analyzing the process which causes the initial imbalance in the investment sector and the resulting liquidity crisis, see Murray Rothbard's "America's Great Depression." Keynes purported to believe that the triggering forces of the investment crisis were irrational and inexplicable "animal spirits." Rothbard shows that, on the contrary, these forces can be rationally explained and understood: in essence, it is incompetent financial policy, of the sort Alan Greenspan has provided in the last decade, which causes economic crises. Milton Friedman's and Anna Schwartz's famed "The Great Contraction" focuses solely on the monetary aspects of the Great Depression, thereby missing the causative process in the investment sector.)
Rating: 
Summary: The basics of modern economics
Review: If you want to be an economist, this is a book you should definitely read. This is hard reading and I have to admit that without good first year PhD education, you will probably close the book after a couple of pages. But if you are taking graduate studies and you want to feel even more comfortable in the field of macroeconomics, this book is a must. Both from a critical and educative point of view.
Rating:
Summary: This is a 5-Star example of misunderstanding economics!!!
Review: It is a must read for the serious economist. It should be used as an economic Bible demonstrating the misunderstanding of economics. His theories are an illogical mess. All economists need to read this so as to NOT fall into the same economic black hole as Lord Comrade Keynes.
Rating:
Summary: Keynes made the Depression worse
Review: John Maynard Keynes was neither a hero, as alleged by Paul Samuelson and Paul Krugman, nor was he a devil as portrayed by conservative economists of today. He was simply a well meaning man who was profoundly wrong on many levels.
Keynes coined staple economic phrases and equations dealing with things like the "Marginal Propensity to Consume;" he believed it was consumer spending which drove the economy (sound familiar?) Shockingly, Keynes dismissed the idea of savings with the immortal and flippant phrase, "In the long run, we are all dead." Unfortunately, this had severe repercussions for the world economy.
Contrary to what Keynes and his disciples believe, it is not spending which drives the economy. Entrepreneurship drives it and savings (capital) fuels it. During the Great Depression, Keynes advocated government work programs, the idea being to "put money in people's pocket" (boy this is sounding familiar.) There's just one problem with that: where does he think government gets its money in the first place? They can tax it, borrow it, or print it. How does it stimulate anything to take with one hand and give with the other? Printing money is akin to taxation, albeit the invisible kind which is called inflation. There is considerable evidence that Keynes's prescriptions lengthened and worsened the Great Depression.
If ever there was proof of the bankruptcy of Keynsian economics, the 1970's is it. His disciples stood by helplessly, stymied by the twin problems of rising unemployment and inflation called stagflation, something Keynes himself apparently never considered.
On top of all that, the previous reviewers are correct in stating this book is a very difficult read. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It is handy to keep as a reference however; if you're going to argue forcefully for the benefits of laissez-faire capitalism, it helps to be familiar with the ideas of its opponents.
Rating: 
Summary: Historically important, but exceptionally challenging
Review: Keynes "General Theory" is not a layman-friendly work, and can only be recommended to those with a keen interest in economics or history. It is loaded with precisely-defined technical terms and equations, making it a chore to read and understand. As for Keynes' arguments, there is much one can say. At times, he is dead on. At times, he is dead wrong. Often, I felt that his conclusions resulted from his particular (and arbitrary) definitions and dichotimies. For example, central to the work is the distinction between "investment" and "consumption". I find these impossible to separate in the first place! Could I not say that my buying of Keynes' book was an "investment"? Could I not just as legitimately say it was "consumption"? I am not sure I would buy any conclusion that was deduced from such a tenuous division. On the other hand, his discourses on the herd mentality of the stock market are dead-on, and can be seen even today in our current boom-bust cycle. Overall, I felt that this book was a lot of work, and separating the wheat from the chaff is more time consuming than the amount of wheat justifies. It may be historically important, and in some parts, currently relevant, but there are better ways to learn these lessons.
Rating:
Summary: Hard reading - you have been warned!
Review: Keynes had a great economics mind, but little talent explaing it. The book is very hard to read due to convulated, odd grammer and very long, complicated sentences Keynes uses. The challange is understanding the language, rather than the ideas. A typical sentence/paragraph from the book: "The fact that two incommensurable collections of miscellaneous objects cannot in themselves provide the material for a quantitive analysis need not, of course, prevent us from making approximate statistical comparisons, depending on some broad element of judgement rather than strict calculation, which may posses significance and validty within certain limits. Sure. This is the first book in years I gave up reading in the middle.
Until someone rewrites the book for humans - avoid!
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: Keynes has had a profound influence on economic policies without question. If youre curious about economic theories in general then you may want to add this book to your bookshelf along with works by Friedman,Ludwig von Mises and Adam Smith For the most part however, Keynes brand of economics has been a dismal failure. One need to look no further than the stagflation of the 1970's to see this. Keynes work is outdated and discredited. If youre looking to gain a real understanding about economics I suggest you read "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best, most influential books, in Economics ever.
Review: Keynes was certainly a master of economic thought, logic, and above all, certainly the English language. Most readers have a difficult time in comprehending what Keynes has to say. Most of the readers I doubt hold graduate degrees either. The fact is that this book was written by somebody who was an econ prof. for other econ profs. When some yokel with a GED rants about the difficulty of TGT, I find it very hard to take them seriosuly. This is not to say, however, that Keynes cannot be read or comprehened. Many top colleges require reading parts or the whole of TGT for undergrad Econ studies. The book is difficult to read, however it is not written in code. If you approach this book expecting a read like that found in Dr. Suess's works, you will certainly be overwhelmed. If you take your time reading this book, and in points, re-reading this book, you will have gained an exceptional amount of knowledge. Many critics here who pan TGT, both in type and in it's rating, do so because they don't comprehend the books meaning, and are nothing more than reactionaries who see Keynes as a figurehead, representing everything that has gone wrong, both in the world, and here in the US. I find it very difficult to accept a critical review of a book when the reviewer does not point out where the book failed. Instead, most tend to be more critical of the man as a whole, and most reviews are not of the book, but of Keynes's general policies. Many reviewers tend to give the impression that the theories found in TGT have been somehow debunked, and that TGT is no longer accepted as a very important work in economics. Nothing could be further from the truth. While it is important to note that Keynes was not right 100% of the time, no economic theorist is. However, that having been said, much of what Keynes theorized is still taught in collegate macroeconomics today, and that his theories of Aggregate Demand, and the propensity to consume still play an important role in macroeconomics. No examination into macroeconomic theory can be taught without a lengthy discussion of Keynesian postulates, and macroeconomics itself is a development of Keynesian Economics. To those interested in this book, it is important to have a few, at least introductory, college level economics classes under your belt before attempting to read TGT. Be prepared for a challege, but be prepared to gain a great deal of insight into modern macroeconomic thought as well.
Rating:
Summary: Worthless and Disproven
Review: Keynes was no doubt an influential economist. His theories and 'expertise' on economics influenced the post-New Deal economic policies of the United States and the internationalist wealth redistribution schemes like IMF. However, his ideas on economics failed miserably and it was application of Keynesian ideas that wrecked so much havoc on the U.S. particularly in the 1970s with the stagflation (an inflationary recession with unemployment which was theoretically impossible accordingly to Keynesism.) We have Keynes to thank for budget deficits and the nebulous idea that we can spend ourselves into prosperity through the largesse of the federal government. Read Planning for Freedom or Socialism by Ludwig von Mises instead.
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