Maynard Keynes and William Paley: Rarely Explored Connections

Review of Keynesian Studies Vol.2 Rod O’Donnell

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Maynard Keynes and William Paley:

Rarely Explored Connections

Rod O’Donnell

Abstract

Keynes and Paley are two names rarely conjoined in the literature of either figure.

Keynes, however, made significant references to Paley in four of his essays. Most

commentators treat these as historical ephemera, but closer investigations reveal

that they illuminate key aspects of his thought. These include whether Paley or

Malthus was the first Cambridge economist, methodological issues concerning the

nature of economic theorising and how best to disseminate economic thought, and

relationships between scientific and religious explanations. They also serve the

useful task of clarifying and correcting certain errors in Keynes’s essays due to

exaggeration or inaccuracy. In these contexts, Keynes’s remarks on Paley repay

investigation.

Keywords: Keynes; Paley; Malthus; Darwin; Mary Marshall

JEL Classification Number: B19; B22; B30; B31; E12


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I. Introduction

Keynes referred to Paley several times in significant ways, yet Keynes and Paley seldom

appear together in the literatures of either figure. In exploring this largely uncharted

territory, my aim is to examine Keynes’s references to Paley from 1922 to 1944, and to

clarify the nature of the connections, positive and negative, arising therefrom in relation to

economic, political and philosophical matters.1

The almost complete absence of analytical commentary in the Keynes literature is

illustrated by the substantial intellectual biographies by Harrod, Skidelsky, Moggridge and

Dostaler, none of which examine the issue. A similar absence appears characteristic of the

Paley literature. That such connections are viewed as details in the intellectual

contributions of both men is understandable given the many other important matters to

discuss. Closer enquiry reveals that complete neglect is unjustified, however, and that,

despite differences in historical eras and intellectual milieux, the connections highlight

certain key themes in Keynes’s writings.

II. William Paley

Paley (1743-1805), Cambridge don, fellow of Christ’s College, clergyman, and moral and

political philosopher, articulated a distinctive standpoint in morality, politics and

economics. In 1766 he became a fellow of Christ’s and began lecturing on metaphysics,

moral philosophy and the New Testament, his reputation being that of an engaging,

thought-provoking, non-didactic teacher prepared to put unconventional ideas before his

students.

1 One earlier explorer is Waterman (1996, 2017) who discusses one of Keynes’s references to Paley (see

below).


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He often challenged the complacent assumptions of his undergraduates, himself

advocating a position so extreme that his students were forced to clarify their own

opinions in relation to it. ...

At Cambridge, Paley associated himself with Latitudinarians ... and endorsed an

open and tolerant marketplace of ideas. (Le Mahieu 2002, pp. xii-xiii) 2

This influenced his pupil, William Frend, who was Malthus’s tutor as an undergraduate.

Malthus would have found the atmosphere highly congenial, having been previously

educated by dissenters (i.e. those not conforming to official Anglican doctrine).3

Two of Paley’s books are relevant. His first, The Principles of Moral and Political

Philosophy of 1785 (hereafter Principles), became a set text for Cambridge undergraduates

into the Victorian era. His second, Natural Theology, appeared in 1802, subtitled Evidences

of the Existences and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature.

Prompted by a rise of scepticism about Christianity, it sought to demonstrate to a wide

audience the existence of God and the credibility of biblical doctrine using appeals to

“empirical” considerations rather than authority. His core argument for a designed universe

derived from his famous watchmaker analogy. Just as a watch is a clever, complex and

intricate object based on natural laws that is designed by humans for human purposes, so

the universe is a far cleverer, more complex and more intricate object designed by God for

divine purposes. In short, “Design must have a designer. That designer must have been a

person. That person is God”.4

Several other aspects of Natural Theology are relevant. First, it revealed the impact of

Malthus’s 1798 Population essay, for Paley now accepted Malthus’s arguments and

abandoned the ‘greater population/greater happiness’ argument in his Principles. Second, it

was read by Charles Darwin, a later member of Christs’s College. And third, his natural

2 Latitudinarianism emphasised the importance of reason and personal judgment, and hence tolerance towards

divergent creeds and forms of worship in Christianity.

3 For a resumé of Paley’s life, see Waterman (2017, pp.209-211).

4 Paley (1854, ch.23 conclusion).


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theology arguments met with opposition from theologians as well as scientists.

III. Keynes’s Remarks concerning Paley

These appear in four essays in two volumes of The Collected Writings of John Maynard

Keynes − Essays in Persuasion, first published in 1931 and then posthumously in 1951,

with one relevant essay; and Essays in Biography published from 1933 onwards, with three

relevant essays. In order of first composition, the essays are as follows.

(1) “Thomas Robert Malthus”, first read in 1922 prior to publication in 1933 (CW X,

pp.71-108).5

(2) “The End of Laissez-Faire”, delivered as a 1924 Oxford lecture before being

published in 1926 (CW IX, pp.272-294).

(3) “My Early Beliefs”, first read in 1938 prior to posthumous publication in 1949 (CW

X, pp.433-450), and

(4) “Mary Paley Marshall”, Keynes’s obituary of whom appeared in 1944 (CW X,

pp.232-250).6

Keynes regarded Paley as having an important place in the intellectual history of

Cambridge. He regretted not having written about him, and awarded him two remarkable

accolades.

I wish I could have included some account of Paley amongst these Essays [on

Biography]. For Paley, so little appreciated now, was for a generation or more an

5 In what follows, all references to Keynes’s writings are to Keynes (1971-1989), and take the form of CW,

followed by the volume number and page numbers.

6 Indirect references to Paley arise in Keynes’s Treatise on Probability. Arguments by design are found to be

logically insufficient unless appreciable prior probabilities of designer existence are available (CW VIII, pp.

329-30, 334).


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intellectual influence on Cambridge only second to Newton. Perhaps, in a sense, he

was the first of the Cambridge economists. If anyone will take up again Paley’s

Principles he will find, contrary perhaps to his expectations, an immortal book.

(CW X, p.79 n2, original emphasis)

It is unclear why Keynes chose the adjective immortal, for it would not have been based on

the belief that the book’s central arguments were correct or enduring. It appears to have

been used because the book was one that would ‘live on’ due to its significance in relation

to the development of thought during the (English) Enlightenment, its synthesis of morality,

politics, economics and religion, and its thought-provoking nature.

That aside, to be placed second only to Newton in his influence on Cambridge, and

possibly to have displaced Malthus as the first of the Cambridge economists was high

praise indeed. Concerning Newton, Keynes’s essay on the natural philosopher suggests one

possible reason.

[Newton] looked on the whole universe ... as a secret which could be read by

applying pure thought to certain evidence, certain mystic clues which God had laid

about the world [that] were to be found partly in the evidence of the heavens [and]

partly in certain papers ... handed down ... in an unbroken chain back to the

original...revelation... He regarded the universe as a cryptogram set by the

Almighty (CW X, p.366; also p.377).

In their different ways, both Newton and Paley sought decipherment.

Concerning the possible displacement of Malthus as the title-holder, Paley’s Principles

is the key work. Although focused on moral and political philosophy, it contained

significant economic content. Moral philosophy might set ends, but political philosophy is

related to means and so involves economics. In addition, Paley’s work is related to other

issues in Keynes’s writings (see below).

While not highly significant, Keynes’s remarks on Paley are still far from insignificant

and repay exploration. The key analytical themes in the Keynes-Paley links are as follows.


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(i) The degrees of consilience between private and public interests.

(ii) The respective roles of markets and the state.

(iii) Whether current economic systems require significant change.

(iv) The reasons for such changes.

(v) The connections, if any, between economic and religious explanations.

IV. Paley on Happiness, Population and Economic Policy

The scope of Paley’s thought ranged from God’s design of the universe and its inhabitants;

how individuals do, and should, use their faculties to make rational choices; how society

should be constituted to better serve God’s purpose; and reflections on current issues.

However, in discussing these, he used ideas that were not always internally compatible.

The views in his Principles may be summarised as follows. First, the argument is

teleological. It bases itself on God’s purposeful design of the universe, this purposiveness

being revealed by natural religion (the evidence provided by nature) and revealed religion

(the evidence provided by the bible). Concerning humans, Paley saw God’s purpose as

having two primary elements: the happiness of humans, the beings placed at the pinnacle

of living creatures; and the endowment of humans with intelligence and free will, such

faculties ensuring that choice becomes a necessity. Second, in explaining how humans go

about making choices, he was influenced by Bentham’s utilitarianism. As self-interested,

rational beings, humans made choices based on assessed benefits and costs. Intelligent

(far-sighted) agents would then choose to maximise happiness over their entire life-time,

which meant choosing to follow God’s will for their finite time on earth in order to be

rewarded with the far greater happiness of everlasting life in heaven (and to avoid the

eternal torment of hell which would obliterate any happiness from an ungodly life on earth).

Further, it enhanced everyone else’s happiness on earth, for obedience to God’s will meant

accepting moral duties such as loving one neighbour and obeying the ten commandments.

The result was a neat alignment between individual self-interest and the public interest.

Rational agents served their own self-interest (in this life and the after-life), and the social


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interest (in this life).7

With God intending human happiness, Paley reasoned as follows. Total human

happiness is directly proportional to the number of happy human beings and their levels of

happiness. Both then need maximisation. The supreme goal became growth in population

and the provision of sufficient material security, these views being outlined in Book 6,

Chapter 11, “Of Population and Provision; and of Agriculture and Commerce as

Subservient Thereto”.

The final view of all rational politics is, to produce the greatest quantity of

happiness in a given tract of country. [Those things that] contribute to this end

[have value, and those that] interfere with it ... are evils.

... within certain limits, and within those...to which civil life is diversified under the

temperate governments that obtain in Europe, it may be affirmed, I think, with

certainty, that ... the collective happiness will be nearly in the exact proportion of

the numbers ... of inhabitants.

... the decay of population is the greatest evil that a state can suffer; and the

improvement of it the object which ought, in all countries, to be aimed at in

preference to every other political purpose whatsoever.

Let it be remembered then, that agriculture is the immediate source of human

provision; that trade conduces to the production of provision only as it promotes

agriculture; that the whole system of commerce, vast and various as it is, hath no

other public importance than its subserviency to this end. (Paley 2002, pp.419,

419-420, 420, 437 respectively)

The injunction to maximise happiness has direct implications for political philosophy. As

7 As Keynes put it, “obedience to the will of God”, brought “I and others to a parity” (CW IX, p.273).


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rational beings, men will not marry unless they can support their families and, as free-

willed beings, they can choose to marry or not. The object of statecraft is then to provide

policies that provide sufficient material security, encourage procreation within marriage,

and discourage it outside marriage. In the economy, this meant a primary emphasis on

agriculture (tillage was preferred to pasturage), treating all other economic sectors as

subsidiary to agriculture, the removal of gross inequalities in land distribution, and a

progressive income tax.

However, Paley’s proposals were mixed with a good dose of aristocratic paternalism.

First, in their own interest, humans were receiving instruction. Rational free-willed beings

were told how to exercise their free will and rationality. Second, no upheaval of the social

structure was sought – there would still be a class system based on property (including

land), and stable constitutional government. All that was advanced was sufficient reduction

in inequality to assist the material security necessary for population expansion.8

V. Keynes’s Malthus Essay

Malthus went up to Cambridge in 1784. Paley himself had left Cambridge, with his

Principles appearing in 1785 in Malthus’s first year, Keynes’s view being that this work

‘must be placed high...amongst the intellectual influences on the [future] author of the

Essay on Population’ (CW X, p.79). In Malthus’s third year (1786-87), controversy

erupted when Frend scandalously advocated Unitarianism, the doctrine that God was one

being and not three, this leading the university in 1788 to declare him unfit to hold the

office of tutor.9

By 1796, Malthus’s interest in population was evident in a manuscript that failed to find

a publisher.

8 See also Waterman (1991, pp.117-119).

9 Incidentally, Frend’s daughter married Augustus de Morgan, author of books and papers on logic and

probability, whose views Keynes discussed in the Treatise on Probability.


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On the subject of population ... I cannot agree with Archdeacon Paley, who says,

that the quantity of happiness in any country is best measured by the number of

people. (CW X, p.83)

His celebrated Essay on the Principles of Population (hereafter Population) appeared

shortly after in 1798, generated partly by debates with his father over the “doctrine of a

future age of perfect equality and happiness”. Malthus rejected “perfectibilism”, but at the

same time justified “the methods of the Creator” (CW X, p.84).

Keynes hailed the work as follows.

The voice of objective reason had been raised against a deeper instinct ...; and

man’s mind, in the conscious pursuit of happiness, was daring to demand the reins

of government from out of the hands of unconscious urge for mere predominant

survival. ... Malthus believed he had found the clue to human misery.

The book can claim a place amongst those which have had a great influence on the

progress of thought. It is profoundly in the tradition of...humane science ... – the

tradition which is suggested by the names of Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Paley,

Bentham, Darwin, and Mill, a tradition marked by a love of truth and a ... noble

lucidity, by a prosaic sanity free from sentiment or metaphysic, and by an immense

disinterestedness and public spirit. There is a continuity in these writings, not only

of feeling, but of actual matter. It is in this company that Malthus belongs. (CW X,

pp.85-86, emphases added)

The presence of the relatively forgotten Paley in this eminent company is somewhat

surprising. And while his Principles possessed some of the above characteristics, it was

certainly not free of immense disinterestedness or metaphysic.

One instance of Paley’s love of truth, immediately conjoined with immense


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“interestedness”, was the recantation of his previous views on population after reading

Malthus. His altered views were advanced in Natural Theology, in Chapter 26 on “The

Goodness of the Deity”, part of which discussed “the evils of civil life”.

Mankind will in every country breed up to a certain point of distress. ... The order

of generation proceeds by something like a geometrical progression. The increase

in provision ... can only assume the form of an arithmetic series. Whence it follows,

that the population will always overtake the provision, will pass beyond the line of

plenty, and will continue to increase till checked by the difficulty of procuring

subsistence. ... [T]hese circumstances constitute what we call poverty, which

necessarily imposes labour, servitude, and restraint. (Paley 1854, pp.276-77).

Paley nevertheless continued to uphold the idea of a benevolent Creator. No social change

was required to alleviate poverty because the unhappiness caused by material distress was

compensated by the happiness derived from non-material sources, including non-tyrannic

government, religion, and the habits of virtue, sobriety and moderation. And even if the

“distinctions” evident in social life were “regarded” as evils by those suffering from them,

they had “little reason” to complain. Melioration was not ruled out, but significant social

change was.10

After Population, Malthus tackled other current issues. His pamphlet of 1800 on the

high price of provision located the cause in the notion of “effective demand”, an idea that

Keynes described as “the beginning of systematic economic thinking”. This overly

enthusiastic remark is unsustainable, however, because it omits all of Malthus’s

predecessors. The writings of many earlier theorists, including Adam Smith, certainly

indicated systematic thinking in being grounded on logic and observation, and/or on

economies as systems. A more qualified remark was needed – possibly, that it was the

start of systematic English economic thinking in the 19th century.

10

In other chapters, Paley presumed to discuss The Personality of the Deity, The Natural Attributes of the

Deity and The Unity (that is, uniformity of plan) of the Deity.


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Following new editions of Population, and the start of his friendship with Ricardo in

1811, Malthus produced his Principles of Political Economy in 1820. This referred to

“effectual demand”, also called therein “effective demand”, a notion central to Keynes’s

theorising. And just as Smith had done in the Wealth of Nations, Malthus recognised that

the “sovereign” (or government) had a “class of duties” including not only public works

(such as the construction and maintenance of roads, canals and docks), but also the

education of the poor, taxation, and installing a body of commercial law.11

VI. Who was the First Cambridge Economist?

Waterman (1996, 673-4) argues that Keynes was right to view Paley as the first of the

Cambridge economists, the actual originator of the “Cambridge”, non-classical way of

thinking, even if Keynes himself didn’t fully appreciate why the appellation was

appropriate.12

Although his paper aims to elucidate the “sense” in which Keynes bestowed

the title, this only becomes clear in its final section where two remarkable reasons are

advanced. First, that “Virtually the whole of Malthus’s population theory, narrowly

considered, is to be found in Paley’s brief exposition”. And second, that in Paley “demand

determines supply in the long period” (ibid, pp.681-682). The last claim reposes on two

sentences in Book 6, Chapter 11 of the Principles. These refer not to total output, but to the

output of provision (primarily of food). Here it is said that “the production [of provision]

depends...on the distribution [of provision]”, and that the “quantity of provision raised out

of the ground ... will evidently be regulated by the demand’ of those with the ability to pay

(Paley 2002, p.432, emphases added). While the last proposition could be extended to total

output, Paley restricts it primarily to agricultural output, which raises the question as to

whether it is properly comparable to Keynes’s effective demand.

11

On effectual/effective demand, see Malthus (1989, pp.348-349, 355-356, 490-495, 569-571, 589, 592),

and on the government’s duties, ibid, pp.18-21, 511-512, 525, 591.

12 Waterman (2017), drawing heavily on Waterman (1996), also maintains this thesis.


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Keynes’s own reasons for placing Malthus first, however, are made clear in his 1933

essay.

I have long claimed Robert Malthus as the first of the Cambridge economists, and

can do so, after the publication of these letters, with increased sympathy and

admiration. (CW X, p.101, emphases added)13

The letters in question are missing Malthus letters, discovered by Sraffa in 1930, in the

Malthus-Ricardo correspondence. Previously, Malthus may have been so regarded with

roughly equal weight given to population and effective demand. Keynes’s interest in

population went back to 1919 at least (CW II, pp.6, 12-13), and his theorising in the

Treatise on Money of 1930 sought to use effective demand to explain changes in output.

The latter, often overlooked, link is stated in his General Theory:

The significance of both my present and my former arguments lies in the their

attempt to show that the volume of employment is determined by the estimates of

effective demand made by the entrepreneurs. (CW VII, p.78).14

But from 1932 onwards, his General Theory framework gave high prominence to effective

demand. Malthus’s double concern – “the actual check to produce and population arises

more from want of stimulus than want of power to produce” (CW X, p.98) – was also

Keynes’s double concern, which put Malthus first on both counts. But with effective

demand the organising concept in a theory explaining levels of aggregate output and

employment, it was effective demand, not population, that became central.

As interesting as Waterman’s propositions are, they are difficult to sustain for the

following reasons.

13

The claim was repeated in 1935 (see below).

14 See, for example, CW V, Ch.12, and CW VI, Chs.27-30, even if neither Malthus nor effective demand are

mentioned in the Treatise on Money.


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1. Reframing the question

In Keynes’s remark, “Perhaps, in a sense, [Paley] was the first of the Cambridge

economists”, the first four words are effectively expunged. What for Keynes was a

possibility is replaced with an actuality, with Waterman then searching for arguments in

Paley resembling what are taken to be arguments in Keynes.

2. Historical considerations

(i) Keynes gave no hint that Paley preceded Malthus concerning effective demand (or

population immiseration). If he had thought this, it is virtually certain it would have

been mentioned for he was interested in the evolution of ideas, including his own.

(ii) More significantly, Keynes’s essay was published in early 1933 not long after Sraffa’s

discovery, its full title being “Robert Malthus: The First of the Cambridge Economists”.

Having explicitly awarded the title to Malthus, it was then appropriate to insert the

Paley footnote suggesting that, in some other unspecified (but necessarily non-Malthus-

related) sense, Paley might possibly be so regarded.

(iii) Further, as the editorial note to the essay indicates (CW X, p.71), the new sections

added in creating the 1933 version are located at CW X, pp. 87-91 and 94-103. Both

new sections explicitly emphasise Malthus and effective demand, so that this becomes

the main sense in which Malthus is regarded as first.

(iv) In Keynes’s lectures of late 1932, which first exposited the rudiments of the General

Theory, Malthus receives positive mention with Paley absent.15

15

Rymes (1988, p.A51). For 1933-34, see ibid, pp. B12, C8, and CW XXIX, pp.67, 81.


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(v) In Keynes’s 1935 paean of praise to Malthus, he is reaffirmed as title-holder with

Paley again invisible.

Let us, however, think of Malthus to-day as the first of the Cambridge economists

– as, above all, a great pioneer ... I claim for Malthus a profound intuition and an

unusual combination of [being open] to the shifting picture of experience and of

constantly applying to its interpretation the principles of formal thought. (CW X, pp.

107-8)

3. Analytical reasons

(i) Paley’s remarks often implicitly assume full employment, or at least fairly quick

adjustment to full employment. One example is his proportionality principle that twice

the number of inhabitants will produce twice the quantity of happiness. This presumes

every new inhabitant will be happy, which then requires sufficient provision for all

inhabitants, and hence jobs for all job-seekers. A second is that the limit on provision set

by soil fertility (natural or assisted) far exceeds the demands of a growing population. A

third is Paley’s account of labour-saving technical progress (or “abridgement of labour”),

where the initial increase in unemployment is only temporary with later effects causing a

return to the previous level of employment (Paley 2002, pp.450-452), this being a quite

orthodox argument not following from Keynes’s treatment of effective demand.

(ii) However, if shortages of provision were to arise, Paley has population control

mechanisms ensuring, directly or indirectly, the elimination of pools of unemployed

labour. Given that population adjusts to the limit of provision, individuals unable to

gain provision will either quit the country by emigration or colonisation; or remain at

home but cease seeking marriage which, according to Paley, results in fewer children.16

16

Paley is too circumspect to mention labour force withdrawals due to criminality, begging or charity.


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(iii) It is difficult to see how a theory linking greater population to greater misery could be

found in a theory linking greater population to greater happiness, for the former can

only arise in reaction to the latter. Paley certainly considered checks on population, but

his Principles did not view them as insuperable along Malthus’s or any other lines.17

(iv) Much in Waterman (1996) and (2017) concerns a mathematical model based on

Paley’s interdependence between provisions and luxuries. Such interdependence,

however, plays no significant role in Keynes’s arguments.

(v) Waterman argues that Paley’s model is purely demand-driven. But like his predecessors,

Paley used both supply and demand, with most of his discussion concerning aggregate

supply (and its abundance) rather than aggregate demand (and any deficiencies it may

have). As noted, his two demand-related sentences apply only to one sector of the

economy. In any case, the general idea that demand influences supply is not Keynes-

specific. It is central, for example, to orthodox theory where, combined with its twin,

supply influences demand, it generates market-clearing. By itself, it does not imply

(long period) demand deficiency and unemployment.

(vi) Waterman calls the non-Malthus-related sense of the “Paley-first” argument

methodological. This not entirely transparent label reposes on equivalence between

Keynes’s General Theory and 1950s “Keynesianism”, the latter providing the distorted

orthodox interpretations that reduce Keynes’s theory to the proposition that nothing

matters except aggregate demand. With both Paley and Keynes cast as purely demand-

driven theorists, they share the same one-sided (and mistaken) approach, as against

Malthus whose model was “more than merely demand driven” and sought to do

“justice to the whole of economic reality” (Waterman 1996, pp.682-3, 2017, p.227).

17

While both Paley and Malthus saw a contest between population and provision, their theories and

conclusions were strongly opposed, even when narrowly considered. The former theory cannot contain the

latter.


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This unusual argument results in Keynes being, not only aligned with Paley, but also

opposed to Malthus. The crucial caveats, that there is more to the General Theory than

“crude” Keynesianism, and that such an argument only applies “insofar as the latter

may truly be discovered in … parts [of the former]”, are acknowledged, but do not

deter Waterman from upholding his argument. The outcome, however, is internal

inconsistency. The “Paley first” position requires that the above equivalence holds.

The admission of definite or possible non-equivalence means that equivalence

definitely or possibly does not hold. Both cannot be true.

(vii) A similar substitution of Paley for Malthus occurs in Waterman’s earlier book (1991,

p.121). Here it is suggested that Paley’s Principles related “employment to effective

demand and effective demand to income distribution”, and that these were probably the

ideas that inspired Keynes to remark that perhaps it was “actually” Paley rather than

Malthus who was the first. Again this conflicts with Keynes’s declared position.

“Rational reconstructions” have their dubious sides.

(viii) In 1937 Keynes saw Malthus as warning of two devils: devil P (population) and devil

U (unemployment due to insufficient effective demand). Importantly, the latter was

Malthusian ‘since it was Malthus himself who first told us about him’, not the

unmentioned Paley (CW XIV, pp.131-32, emphasis added).

(ix) Waterman (2017) adds two note-worthy remarks. First, that Paley’s 18th century

individualism foreshadows the extreme 20th century individualism of the strongly anti-

Keynesian politician, Margaret Thatcher (ibid, p.215). This strikes an odd note. Having

first aligned Paley and Keynes, and now Paley and Thatcher, it implies an alignment

between Keynes and Thatcher. Second, and more importantly, in clarifying the

methodological sense of his ‘Paley first’ argument, Waterman significantly re-phrases

Keynes’s original conjecture as follows: Paley was “the first of the Cambridge [or at

any rate, ‘Keynesian’] economists” (ibid, p.226). As before, this assumes that Keynes

saw Paley as a purely demand-driven economist, that this coincided with his own


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position, and that he had consciously embedded in the General Theory the crude

Keynesian notions that later emerged in orthodox interpretations from the 1950s

onwards. These propositions effectively assume what is to be proved.

(x) A further reason why Keynes distanced his economics from Paley’s (but not Malthus’s)

is outlined in the next section.

Overall, the Keynes-Paley connection raised by the Malthus essay is predominantly

negative. On the smaller, positive side, the Paley-influenced Cambridge environment

supported Malthus’s existing disposition to being open to challenges to received opinion,

which indirectly assisted his critique of Paley’s views and the development of his own. On

the larger, negative side, Paley’s optimistic stance that higher population is desirable, that it

deserves state promotion, and that the happiest of worlds would result, was rejected. For

Malthus, higher population was the main cause of misery, to which he later added

insufficient effective demand. Paley’s views in the Principles were thus a direct, negative

stimulus for Malthus’s thought and, with Keynes siding with Malthus, an indirect, negative

influence on Keynes’s thought.18

VII. The End of Laissez-Faire

This quite complex 1926 essay contains several Paley-related remarks, of which the most

significant are the following.

The idea of a divine harmony between private advantage and the public good

is already apparent in Paley. (CW IX, p.274).

18

For Keynes’s advocacy of a managed population, see his “The Underlying Principles” of 1923 (CW XVII,

pp.448-54), “The End of Laissez-Faire” of 1926 (CW IX, p.292), “Economic Possibilities for our

Grandchildren” of 1928-30 (CW IX, pp.326, 331), and his 1937 Galton Lecture on “Some Economic

Consequences of a Declining Population” (CW XIV, p.124).


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The phrase laissez-faire is not to be found in the works of Adam Smith, of

Ricardo or of Malthus. Even the idea is not present in a dogmatic form ...

Smith, of course, was a Free Trader and an opponent of many 18th century

restrictions on trade [but] he was not dogmatic. Even his famous passage

about the “invisible hand” reflects the philosophy which we associate with

Paley rather than the economic dogma of laissez-faire. (CW IX, p.279).

Two things are distinguished here: laissez-faire (in an economic dogma sense), and

invisible hands (in a religious sense), with Smith associated with neither. On the one hand,

he is not linked to laissez-faire because he never used the term and was not viewed as

dogmatic. On the other, the idea of a divine invisible hand fostering a harmony of interests

is clearly, and rightly, associated with Paley, not the author of The Wealth of Nations.19

The key issue is the alleged presence of an invisible hand or mechanism promoting

maximum happiness. Is this the direct purposeful hand of the deity; the deity operating at

one remove through a free market mechanism; or simply a harmonising property of free

markets on their own? In his Principles, Paley adopted the first. His “double the

people/double the happiness” principle, combined with his “soil fertility exceeds human

fecundity” proposition and other remarks, imply full employment.

Careful examination of Smith’s arguments, however, shows that Keynes was correct in

dissociating Smith’s economics from both invisible hands and laissez-faire. The numerous

free-market, ideological renditions of Smith’s phrase derive from superficial readings of

his Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations. Closer inspection reveals three

things. First, the omission of the invisible hand phrase leaves the logic of Smith’s actual

arguments intact. Second, his argument does not lead to a full employment conclusion, but

only to higher, not necessarily optimal, output levels. And third, a significant state sector is

needed to ensure, inter alia, that self-interested individuals are constrained to serve the

19

Following Cliffe Leslie and Sidgwick, Keynes suggests the idea derives from Smith’s Theory of Moral

Sentiments (CW IX, p.279), a view criticised below.


64

national interest, and that the state undertakes public works as a supplement to private

sector activity. There are in fact several important parallels between Smith and Keynes,

including sub-optimal equilibria, the need for institutional reform, and the necessity of

significant government involvement, direct and indirect, in the economy. Keynes’s

propositions that the doctrine of an invisible hand belongs to Paley rather than Smith, and

that Smith’s system could not be conceptualised in terms of laissez-faire, are thus entirely

justified. Whatever Smith’s stance on religion, he and the non-religious Keynes had more

affinities in economic theorising than either had with Paley.20

Keynes’s overall thesis in his essay is that current biases towards laissez-faire and

against state action in economic matters derive from the writings of political philosophers

(such as Paley) and economics popularisers (such as Martineau), not from “the greatest

authorities” in economics. The preceding discussion, combined with Keynes’s aversion to

the Benthamite utilitarianism adopted by Paley – for Keynes, it was “the worm...gnawing

at the insides of modern civilisation and ... responsible for its present moral decay” (CW X,

pp.445, 447) – mean that the Keynes-Paley connection is again negative.21

VIII. “My Early Beliefs”

This 1938 paper was read to the Memoir Club whose members came primarily from

Cambridge (university members, usually Apostles) and Bloomsbury (writers and artists).

Although an important document that reads well, Keynes’s memoir is quite complex,

misleading and inconsistent in various respects.22

As always, context is important. The period designated as ‘early’ began with Keynes’s

20

Keynes’s remark linking Paley to socialism and democratic egalitarianism, on the other hand, is surely

misconceived (CW IX, pp.273-274).

21 For further examination of Keynes’s and Smith’s arguments on these matters, see O’Donnell (2020a,

2020b). On Smith not being a Christian or indeed even religious, see Rothschild (2001, pp.68, 129-35,

295n49, 298-301).

22 For earlier commentary on this theme, see O’Donnell (1989, pp.148-54; and 1991, pp.92-94)


65

reading of Moore’s Principia Ethica in October 1903, and ended in late 1914 when the

unsuccessful (pre-war) breakfast party occurred. Only three people were present, D.H.

Lawrence, Bertrand Russell and Keynes (aged 27). Lawrence, who came from an unhappy

working class background, was a writer whose life and literary works were deeply imbued

with emotion. At breakfast, he was sullen, irritable and non-participatory, his later meeting

with Moore being no better. Although friends with David (“Bunny”) Garnett, he disliked

this circle of Garnett’s friends, especially its intellectualism, cynicism and rationalism. In

retrospect, Keynes, remembering nothing of the content of the conversation, and little of

the negative feelings associated with it (even though the latter constituted the rationale for

his memoir), opened as follows.

... was there something true and right in what Lawrence felt? There

generally was. His reactions were incomplete and unfair, but they were not

usually baseless. ... And ... did the way of responding to life which lay

behind [our conversation] lack something important? Lawrence was

oblivious of anything valuable it may have offered – it was a lack that he

was violently apprehending. So Bunny’s memoir has thrown my mind back

to reflections about our mental history in the dozen years before the war ... I

should like in this contribution ... to try and recall the principal impacts on

one’s virgin mind and to wonder ... whether one still holds by that youthful

religion. (CW X, pp.434-35, original emphasis)

This passage requires careful consideration. First, it runs together two distinct things –

beliefs and feelings, or intellectual views and emotional states. Although proposing an

investigation into Lawrence’s emotional reactions to the intellectualism confronting him,

Keynes’s memoir is less concerned with emotional states than with his own “religion”, that

is, his beliefs about ethics and morality, or about goodness and right conduct. Second, these

philosophical beliefs were far from all his beliefs. By late 1914, he had encountered worlds

beyond undergraduate academia, those of work, economics, politics, public affairs and

administration. Inter alia, he had worked two years in the India Office, supported himself


66

by lecturing on economics, become politically active, participated in a 1911 Liberal Party

trip to Ireland, been appointed to a Royal Commission, and written his first book (Indian

Currency and Finance). And third, the memoir was a set of impressions aiming to

stimulate private, amicable discussion among old friends, not an academic paper seeking

(internal and external) analytical soundness.

Moore’s book discussed ethics (the nature of goodness, what things were good, and the

maximisation of goodness as the objective of human behaviour), and morality (how

individuals should behave in the pursuit of increased goodness). It presented doctrines of

both ends and means. In a 1904 Apostles paper, Keynes strongly criticised Moore’s

conservative theory of morality using his nascent ideas on probability which eventually

resulted in his Treatise on Probability. The 1938 memoir extended his early criticisms

about means to questions of ends by expanding the range of things which he surmised had

intrinsic value. In both cases, the criticisms were internal, not external rejections of

Moore’s framework.

It is in closing the memoir, in this context, that Keynes quotes Paley, the quotation again

coming from chapter 11 in the Principles.

Secondly, although we speak of communities as of sentient beings; although we

ascribe to them happiness and misery, desires, interests and passions; nothing

really exists or feels but individuals. The happiness of a people is made up of the

happiness of single persons; and the quantity of happiness can only be augmented

by increasing the number of percipients, or the pleasure of their perceptions. (Paley

2002, p.419, original emphasis)

Evidently, this greatest happiness principle reposes on theoretical individualism − wholes

are sums of parts, with parts independent of wholes.

Now consider Keynes’s paragraph, here quoted in full because his prior remarks are

important to his conclusion.

I have said that this pseudo-rational view of human nature led us to a thinness, a


67

superficiality, not only of judgement, but also of feeling. It seems to me that

Moore’s chapter on ‘The Ideal’ left out altogether some whole categories of

valuable emotion. The attribution of rationality to human nature instead of

enriching it, now it seems to me to have impoverished it. It ignored certain

powerful and valuable springs of feeling. Some of the spontaneous, irrational

outbursts of human nature can have a sort of value from which our schematism was

cut off. Even some of the feelings associated with wickedness can have value. And

in addition to the values arising out of spontaneous, volcanic and even wicked

impulses, there are many objects of valuable contemplation and communion

beyond those we knew of – those concerned with the order and pattern of life

amongst communities and the emotions they can inspire. Though one must ever

remember Paley’s dictum that ‘although we speak of communities as of sentient

beings and ascribe to them happiness and misery, desires, interests and passions,

nothing really exists or feels but individuals’, yet we carried the individualism of

our individuals too far. (CW X, p.449, original emphasis)

Considered as a whole, Keynes’s remarks are variously mistaken, misleading and

unconvincing. Given later beliefs, it is perfectly legitimate to criticise earlier beliefs – say

about human nature, its rationality or Moore’s chapter – but it is wrong to base the critique

on misrepresentations of earlier beliefs and Moore’s propositions.

Some misrepresentations are the following. On rationality, he viewed Moore and

himself as assuming that all humans are rational. This cannot be sustained. Moore sought a

rational investigation of ethics and morality, of goodness and wickedness, and of ways of

increasing the goodness of wholes. He provided prescriptions to be followed not

descriptions of actual behaviour. In believing that rational analysis and answers were

possible, he never assumed that all individuals were rational. His assumptions were simply

that humans had capacities for rationality, theoretically and practically, and that the initial

step to greater goodness was persuasion. The same applies, with equal force, to Keynes.

The author of the Economic Consequences of the Peace protested rationally, and with

powerful feeling, against what he saw as the irrational, unjust settlement of World War I.


68

Similarly, Keynes’s derision of Russell as simultaneously holding two “ludicrously

incompatible” ideas − that most human affairs were carried on irrationally, and that the

solution was to carry them on rationally − is again unsustainable, for these ideas are

logically connected. And it likewise applies to Keynes. Most of his subsequent writings,

including the General Theory, were appeals to reason aimed at replacing mistaken

theoretical and policy beliefs with more rational analyses encouraging ethically better

outcomes. His past failures were ever-present reminders that many people disagreed with

his reasoned views. As he put it in 1931 in Essays in Persuasion, “Here are ... the

croakings of a Cassandra who could never influence the course of events in time” (CW IX,

p.xvii). The tasks of rational analysis are always preliminary to the tasks of intellectual

persuasion (successful or unsuccessful).

On morality, Keynes states that “we set on one side” key parts of Moore’s chapter on

“Ethics in Relation to Conduct”, namely, the injunctions to act to produce “the most

probable maximum of eventual good” and to obey “general rules”. This is partly correct

but misleadingly put, for it was Moore’s conclusions that were rejected, not his questions.

Keynes thought better answers could be given by substituting a better theory of probability

for the frequency theory Moore had implicitly used. This was the primary reason why he

spent ‘all the leisure of many years’ in studying probability (CW IX, pp.445-446, emphasis

added). In morality, this led him to advance maximum probable goodness as the goal (a

subtly different point), and adherence to individual judgment in each case, not unreflective

rule-following in all cases.

More importantly, it is difficult to see how wickedness can have any sort of positive

ethical value. Unfortunately Keynes gives no examples. And his own experiences from

1914 to 1938 had given him multiple counter-examples. Further, the claim is self-

contradictory. In Moore’s ethics, goodness and evil (or wickedness) are opposites, the

former having positive, and the latter negative, intrinsic value. In Moore’s philosophy, it is

impossible to conclude that an intrinsically wicked state can have positive intrinsic value.23

23

The method for determining intrinsic value was reflection on the value of a state of affairs in isolation

from all others.


69

On the other hand, there is no inconsistency in saying that something bad in itself may also

be a means to goodness. But goodness as a means is forever different from goodness as an

end.24

Keynes’s remark is also inconsistent concerning the principle of organic unity. The

theme that wholes are not always the sum of their parts is a constant one in Moore’s and

Keynes’s thought, as Keynes’s remarks in the memoir (CW X, pp.436-37, 449-50) and

elsewhere (CW VII, p.xxxii; X, p.262) indicate. Just as Paley’s remark in isolation does not

accurately reflect Paley’s own beliefs (surely the deity really exists), so the idea that only

individuals exist does not accurately reflect Keynes’s beliefs. In both his early and late

writings, he accepted the existence of societies, economies and institutions as wholes, as

systems of interacting parts with properties different from those of the parts (and their

simple sums). Anyone holding such views cannot be accused of carrying individualism

‘too far’. Several key claims in the memoir are thus entirely inconsistent with Keynes’s

views from the 1910s to the 1940s, including the General Theory.

Insofar as the memoir deals with emotions rather than beliefs, Moore certainly did not

ignore feelings. Love and friendship between humans belonged to some of the highest

states of goodness. And what was it that was “true and right” in Lawrence’s distaste?

Keynes presents this as a “thin rationalism skipping on the crust of the lava, ignoring both

the reality and the value of the vulgar passions, joined to libertinism and comprehensive

irreverence” (CW X, p.450). From Lawrence’s viewpoint, this was very likely true, but it is

a quite inaccurate and muddled portrait of Keynes’s actual early beliefs.

Finally, it is important to be remember that, alongside his internal critique, Moore’s

philosophy remained foundational to Keynes’s later beliefs, even if it might need

modification in certain respects.

... looking back, this religion of ours was a very good one to grow up under. It

remains nearer the truth than any other that I know...with nothing to be ashamed

of; though it is a comfort...to discard [certain aspects]. ... It is still my religion

24

Justifiable punishment is an example.


70

under the surface,

I see no reason to shift from the fundamental intuitions of Principia Ethica; though

they are much too few and too narrow to fit actual experience which provides a

richer and more various content. (CW X, pp.442, 444, respectively)

In this essay, the Paley quotation was a poorly conceived prop to support some

(inaccurately portrayed) criticisms by Keynes of his earlier beliefs. However, for Keynes’s

readers, it plays a positive role in revealing how seriously he misrepresented some of his

earlier and later beliefs. This assists us in understanding that the memoir is a complex

document mixing truth and error and needing careful treatment. In hindsight, it would

have been better entitled “My partly unreliable recollections of some of my early beliefs”.25

IX. Mary Paley Marshall’s Obituary

Keynes’s 1944 tribute to William Paley’s great-granddaughter not only has historical

interest but also unexpected analytical significance.

In October 1871, Mary Paley was one of the first five women to study at Cambridge and

one of the first two women to sit for the Moral Sciences Tripos, a degree including

Political Economy taught at the time by her future husband, Alfred Marshall. After passing

with honours in 1874, she became the first female lecturer in economics in 1875, taking

over Alfred’s class of women students at Newnham College.26

That year she was invited

to write an introductory economics textbook, in which venture she was joined by Alfred

after their engagement in May 1876. The result was The Economics of Industry, first

published in 1879. Mary also opposed the policy of excluding women from university

25

For another critical account, see Braithwaite (1975, pp.237, 242-245); for additional background, see

Crabtree and Thirlwall (1980) and Bell (1986, Ch3).

26 Later, she lectured on economics at Bristol University College in 1878-1879, and at Oxford during their

Balliol College period in 1883-1884


71

entrance, and played important roles in establishing, administering and endowing the

Marshall Library.

In keeping with the dominant culture of the time, this highly intelligent woman also

bore, with fortitude and without open complaint, a significant academic tribulation visited

on her by her husband. This concerned their joint work that appeared under both names

from 1879 to 1892. Then Alfred “suppressed” it, even though demand was high and sales

good, replacing it with his own similarly named book, Elements of Economics of Industry,

in 1892 which was an adaptation of the first volume of his Principles of Economics for

junior students.27

In the obituary, Keynes made two comments relating to his own approach

to economics, one involving Alfred, the other Paley.

1. Methodological stances

Mary had commented as follows on the joint work.

He [Alfred] never liked the little book because it offended against his belief that

“every dogma that is short and simple is false”, and he said about it “you can’t

afford to tell the truth for half a crown.” (CW X, p.239)

On both counts, Keynes’s methodological stance differed significantly from his former

teacher’s. Regarding Alfred’s first remark, Keynes’s position may be described as follows.

Economics is a complex subject in which some conclusions can be expressed as short and

simple propositions but certainly not all, and dogmas divide into the false and the true (at

least). For Keynes, false dogmas included assertions that a harmony of interests is

generated by laissez-faire, that competitive market systems always self-adjust to full

employment, that supply creates its own demand, that the interest rate is determined by

saving and investment, and that direct proportionality exists between money supply

27

Mary was merely thanked for assistance and advice. See also Keynes’s remarks (CW X, p.239), Marshall

M.P. (1947), and Groenewegen (1995, Ch.8) which is most informative and contains further references.


72

changes and price level changes. True dogmas included the propositions that effective

demand is a key determinant of aggregate output, that market economies generate a range

of equilibrium employment levels, that investment decisions depend on comparisons of

expected returns, that fundamental uncertainty matters, and that rationality is not destroyed

by absences of relevant knowledge.

Alfred’s second one-liner implies that the pursuit of truth in economics requires

laborious investigation and extended discussion, so that large books at higher prices are

essential to expound its key principles, not shorter ones at lower prices. One of Marshall’s

students recorded some of his epigrams, one being the following.

A difficult sentence in Economics is one which is difficult to understand, a simple

sentence is one which is it is impossible to understand.28

I leave readers to ponder self-referential issues.

By contrast, instead of long and laborious constructions of lengthy works, Keynes

preferred more rapid publication, especially of innovative work, to promote the scientific

progress and current usefulness of economics. The difficult process of writing the General

Theory may have taken around three years but once done, he insisted, in keeping with his

exhortation to economists to “fling pamphlets to the wind”, that it be priced cheaply at five

shillings for wide circulation, at which price his royalties were virtually zero.29

2. Religious and scientific accounts of nature, society and the economy

Keynes’s second comment concerns Paley’s influence on Charles Darwin and his theory of

descent with modification by natural selection.

.

... the reading of [Paley’s Natural Theology] a generation later by another

28

See Groenewegen (1995, p.321) for this Zen-like remark.

29 For fuller discussion of Keynes’s approach to writing and his critique of Marshall’s, see O’Donnell (2006).


73

Christ’s man, Charles Darwin, put him on the right track. (CW X, p.232).

In Chapter 26 of Natural Theology, “The Goodness of the Deity”, Paley argued that God’s

design was always beneficent despite any appearances to the contrary: “the world was

made with a benevolent design. It is a happy world after all”. Earlier, chapter 19 had

discussed the benefits of bee stings: the “properties of the sting” are “to be admired”, for its

purpose is “the protection of a treasure [honey] which invites so many robbers”.

In the sole direct reference to Paley in The Origin of Species, Darwin criticised this

benevolence argument using several examples, including bee stings. Due to the design of

the sting, the bee necessarily dies in its deployment.

Can we consider the sting of the bee as perfect, which, when used against many

kinds of enemies, cannot be withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and thus

inevitably causes the death of the insect by tearing out its viscera?30

A weapon that kills its owner is hardly a benevolent possession. According to Darwin, the

sting may have evolved to suit other useful purposes, such as a boring instrument and gall

producer, but it happened to include a major imperfection, one controverting Paley but not

natural selection. Although destructive of individuals, it was, in killing or deterring

enemies, good for the community and hence survival of the species. Like Paley, Darwin

believed in a Creator, but understood that the study of nature may reveal deficiencies in a

priori accounts commencing with religion.

In Dawkins’s (1988) later contrast, Paley believed in the purposeful and perfect

watchmaker of the deity, whereas Darwin believed in the blind and imperfect watchmaker

of evolution.31

While Darwin and Dawkins shared Paley’s reverence for the complexity

and marvels of nature, they replaced his religious conjectures with scientific hypotheses. Is

30

More generally, see the end of Chapter VI in Darwin (1928).

31 See Dawkins (1988, pp.4-5, 15, 21, 37). His view that evolution is blind and with “no purpose in view” is

an overstatement. While evolution is not self-conscious and can make mistakes, it is not, as a process,

without an aim or purpose, namely, the survival of life.


74

the design of life finished and perfect due to being created by an omnipotent deity

possessed of benevolence to every creature? Or is life the manifestation of an imperfect,

ongoing, unfinished process concerned with evolutionary survival and far from benevolent

to each and every creature?32

These issues link up with Smith’s “invisible hand” phrase. Of his three uses, the first in

History of Astronomy has religious connotations as it refers to the hand of Jupiter. His next

in The Theory of Moral Sentiments is ambiguous. It uses the near uniformity of the size of

adult human stomachs to show that, regardless of extreme inequalities elsewhere, everyone

necessarily consumes roughly the same quantity of the necessaries of life. This might refer

to the plan of a divine designer, or it might just be a current fact of nature independently of

whether a deity exists or not. The third, in The Wealth of Nations, occurs in a scientific

argument independent of religion. This argument is simply that, within Smith’s proposed

new institutional framework, the pursuit of self-interest by profit-driven agents seeking

only their own personal wealth will result in increases in national wealth and the public

interest that were not intended by the agents themselves (but were certainly intended by

Smith, and others supporting his proposed new framework).33

Possibly the establishment of the new framework and its beneficial outcomes formed

part of a divine plan. This scientifically-unanswerable proposition only provokes

scepticism, however. It means the deity refrained from implementing the divine plan for

millennia, apparently waiting for one or more humans at a particular place and time to

formulate the conception, to persuade others of its desirability, and for the resulting

coalition to agitate for implementation. And when the initiative as a whole was

unsuccessful, no further intervention occurred. In short, the deity left all the work to

humans, and, when long delays or imperfect implementation over long periods of human

time occurred, did not intervene to effect improvement or perfection. On the other hand,

perhaps no divine agent was involved. One or more humans generated the idea by

32

For a scholarly account of natural theology from a Christian perspective that discusses Paley, Darwin,

Dawkins and others, see McGrath (2011, especially Chs.1-6).

33 For further discussion, see O’Donnell (2020b).


75

scientific processes such as observation, discussion and reflection. Then, although never

implemented as planned, later writers borrowed the language of its originator to proclaim,

for ideological or other reasons, that whatever market system had come into existence also

possessed the same harmony of interests.

The Keynes-Paley connections emerging from the obituary turn out to be indirect,

methodological and fairly neutral. Two people whom Keynes admired, Mary Marshall and

Charles Darwin, provided opportunities for him to comment on key issues related to

methodology and progress in economics. Is it better to publish reasonably quickly even if a

work is imperfect, rather than strive for greater perfection in a difficult subject? And is it

better to do science (natural and social) independently of religious stances rather than in

conformity with current religious belief? Keynes and Paley may have agreed on the former

but were in disagreement on the latter. Nothing prevents scientists from being religious, but

good science needs to be unconstrained by prior religious convictions.34

X. Conclusion

Keynes was well aware of Paley’s significance in the development of thought in

Cambridge, and England more broadly. Even though scientific advances in economics and

biology arose in strong reaction to his views, Paley’s forthright statements nevertheless

indirectly contributed to the more fruitful ideas generated by others.

And while Paley is far from a major figure in relation to Keynes’s theorising, Keynes’s

comments on Paley and associated matters repay examination. Positively, they cast light on

aspects of Keynes’s own views concerning Malthus’s significance, laissez-faire, Adam

Smith and methodological questions, as well as assisting in clarifying remarks that

otherwise might appear obscure. Negatively, his references to Paley serve the useful task of

revealing that some of Keynes’s memory-based remarks are open to criticism as inaccurate,

34

The inadequacies of prior beliefs extend well beyond religion to analyses/reconstructions based on

externally imposed frameworks rather than examinations of what authors actually write.


76

this encouraging their correction so that we might better understand his thought and

contributions.

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Rod O’Donnell

Business School, University of Technology Sydney,

Sydney, Australia.

Maynard Keynes and William Paley: Rarely Explored Connections

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