Strange? Unduly Neglected? Prophet?

In the most influential economics book of the 20th century, the world's most famous economist spent five pages discussing a man most of the world had never heard of. Keynes began section 6 of chapter 23 of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money as follows: “It is convenient to mention at this point the strange, unduly neglected prophet Silvio Gesell…” (Keynes 1936, 353). Today, 90 years later, Gesell remains unduly neglected. The aim of this special issue of the AJES is to remedy that fact. It is hard to overstate the importance of Keynes in terms of present-day awareness of Silvio Gesell. Given the almost complete obscurity in which Gesell's work languished for several decades, it is reasonable to speculate about whether he might have been erased from the pages of history entirely if it hadn't been for Keynes shining a spotlight on his ideas. On the other hand, although Keynes' assessment of Gesell was generally positive, it was not unreservedly so. In fact, while describing Gesell's “profoundly original strivings” as containing “flashes of deep insight,” he also said that “there is a great defect in Gesell's theory” (Keynes 1936, 366). So, on one hand, Keynes is more responsible than anyone else for awareness of Gesell. On the other hand, Keynes also gave people a justification to dismiss Gesell's ideas as defective. The Gesell-Keynes connection is a deep vein that has yet to be fully excavated. A handful of scholars have dealt with the subject and arrived at a variety of different conclusions. Some of those writers are contributors to this issue of the AJES. Among them: Carlos Louge, Founder & Director of the Silvio Gesell Institute in Argentina, wrote a book entitled Keynes and Gesell: A New Paradigm? (2015, Spanish language), in which he argued that Gesell deserves credit for having been the true originator of some of the key concepts in Keynes' work and that the mainstream field of economics has not recognized this yet. Keynes' decision to prominently feature Gesell in his book can be seen as an implicit acknowledgement of this fact. He claimed to have been unaware of the significance of Gesell's work when developing his own ideas. “Owing to certain palpable defects in the argument, I entirely failed to discover their merit … their significance only became apparent after I had reached my own conclusions in my own way” (Keynes 1936, 353). This statement must be viewed with some skepticism. If Gesell anticipated Keynes in important ways, and Keynes acknowledged being aware of Gesell before developing his own analysis, we must consider the possibility that he influenced Keynes' work, even if only at an unconscious level. Ahmed Anwar, a lecturer in economics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, explored the similarities and differences between Gesell's and Keynes' theories of interest in his 2020 paper “From Keynes' Liquidity Preference to Gesell's Basic Interest” and evaluated Keynes' claim that Gesell's work contains a defect. He wrote, “we will argue that Keynes was in fact mistaken on the defect and that although both Keynes and Gesell identify the same theoretical problem, a special role that money plays in preventing the optimal accumulation of capital, it is only Gesell's reform that in theory provides a solution” (Anwar 2020, 1). A more extreme view was advanced by Guido Preparata in his 2002 article “On the Art of Innuendo,” in which he accused Keynes of plagiarizing and bastardizing Gesell's work. Preparata wrote: “It is here argued that Keynes appropriated Gesell's insights into the nature of money and interest, and stripped them of their radical implications, so as to fashion an explanation of the crisis that would pose no threat to the foundations of the capitalist order” (Preparata 2002, 217). It is interesting to reflect on the biographies and characters of the two men. By nature and upbringing, they could not have been more different. Keynes was literally born into respectable academia, the son of an economist at the University of Cambridge. He was an insider through and through—a fellow and lecturer at Cambridge, a government official dealing with Great Britain's finances in both world wars, and a member of the fashionable Bloomsbury Group. It is fair to say that status and respectability were important to Keynes, and it is reasonable to speculate that he may have shied away from embracing some of the more radical elements of Gesell's analysis because he knew that doing so would put his own standing in jeopardy. As Preparata writes, “to embrace Gesell and accept his solution … puts you immediately in the radical camp, in the adversarial camp: you are out from that moment on” (Preparata 2026). Perhaps that was a price Keynes was not willing to pay. Gesell, on the other hand, was a lifelong outsider, an autodidact, who didn't even go to university, and a self-made man. Perhaps Gesell's revolutionary insights were made possible due to him being free of intellectual and institutional orthodoxy. And perhaps Keynes' insider status prevented him from fully embracing (or even fully understanding) Gesell's ideas. It is obvious why Keynes felt compelled to include the discussion of Gesell in his book. He could not ignore or deny the significance of Gesell's work, but fully embracing Gesell would have been extremely risky. It might have meant sacrificing his own status and respectability. Perhaps this explains the tricky balance that Keynes attempted—at once agreeing with the essence of Gesell's analysis but also concluding that is was defective. Is there any reason to doubt that Keynes genuinely considered Gesell a prophet? Let's keep in mind where he wrote this. He wrote it in what he considered his own masterwork. There is no indication whatsoever that he intended the word sarcastically or flippantly. If he really believed it to be true, that fact alone—that is, that the most influential economist of the 20th century considered Gesell a prophet—should make it obligatory for anyone who wants to consider themselves well-educated on the subject of economics to be familiar with Gesell. But why did Keynes choose to append the word “strange?” Gesell's writing is simple, straightforward and accessible (unlike Keynes, whose work is virtually impenetrable to anyone without specialized training in economics). There are no mathematical formulas or specialized terminology, and it can be understood by people with no prior background in the if Gesell was a prophet whose is straightforward and about Perhaps Keynes felt it would have been for him to the word If he had to Gesell as an neglected but the word would that not have been as an of Gesell's And if Keynes understood that with Gesell could his own the word was an of on Keynes' Keynes in fact identify a in Gesell's If what is This is a important what Keynes wrote this there is a great defect in Gesell's He it is only the of a of money interest which a to be from out of … having the reason why the of interest most of interest be he the of an explanation why the of interest is (Keynes 1936, This is an of Gesell's Gesell did why the of interest is the of money to from and of and Gesell wrote: and by and to their and and for this the money in can at once the with his or he can or the for his money him the of the at which it Is it not obvious that will for this and that A and must it in the of a on their and If they this to money from the A and must without the and the of with their will as and as because their and as because they must without the to which they their to If of any other or the of of would him of the of his he would no be to a on other This is a of why the of interest is Keynes' statement is Keynes his that Gesell only a theory of the of interest … He that the of is by the of interest, and that if this were the of would in the so that a of interest would be not but a of the is to the of interest, and he can be by money to other of This him to the famous of money … The money is … But there are which Gesell did not In he was unaware that money was not in having a to but only in from other importance from having a than any other if were to be of their by the a of would into their at and the and so (Keynes 1936, money is or were to be of their by the a of would into their the money to to intended both be In fact, if the statement is true, it that a of interest is in the of than being a of an of And if that is true, can it also be true that the money is would be the point of the money reform if it would the of a of interest Keynes to be There is a of that to this In a paper entitled a Theory of the of The some that between Keynes and a economist in 1936, after the of The General was a Gesell and Keynes' that Gesell's work had a defect. In he issue with the that if money were of status as a of other would into and have the same on the of the of what when people as for wrote, of and away with or other of there must a who the money of and his In other when money is as a for in it being from when one a as as a for no money is from the who the the money and must what to with It if is an an or an money is from no is point is so and obvious hard to that the great Keynes hadn't considered Keynes' to point to that he Keynes' to were than He was to the The fact that he wrote to but did not to his and may that he his that Gesell's analysis was defective. 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In other if we Gesell's but the of in of the that was in the of money would have to be into some other for the of And is the most obvious of only the money of the would in accumulation of for the of which would extreme of the of the reform on that reform is without an but his reform is not without a or it is that Gesell has been unduly neglected. The of this special issue of the AJES is to remedy that fact by from the world to their on different of Silvio Gesell, his and work. 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