ABSTRACT
One way of recasting the objective pursued by Keynes in his The General Theory is to state that he purported to demonstrate the possible existence of involuntary unemployment within a neoclassical framework. Starting from the realisation that this concept had no place in neoclassical theory – he, for one, was speaking of ‘classical’ theory – his aim was to elicit which minimal change in hypotheses could reverse such a state of affairs. Quite sanguinely, Keynes believed that he had achieved this. This was also the prevailing opinion in the years which followed the publication of The General Theory. From the 1970s onwards, however, this view has been strongly questioned. As a result, at present most economists rather think that Keynes failed in his enterprise, which in turn raises the question of why people believed the contrary earlier.
