The ‘General Theory4.0’ research programme: macroeconomics when Keynes eventually escapes Debreu and meets Ulysses and Einstein

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, I propose a new research programme, the ‘General Theory (GT) 4.0’, aimed at restoring the academic influence of Keynes, against many contemporary misunderstandings, by defending his view that macroeconomics is an autonomous discipline with respect to standard theory. This paper focuses on two specific, complementary lines of defence. The first is to show that the metaphor of ‘Ulysses’ journey home’ for understanding Keynes, recently proposed in the literature, provides an intuitive, plastic representation of his major autonomy claims. The second is to suggest that such claims are not ad hoc, but in tune with the postulates of a scientific revolutionary paradigm, such as the relativity theory, reflecting the fact that Keynes and Einstein—despite obvious differences in their respective domains—shared the same ontology, the metaphysical world view of time and epistemology.