John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) was a British economist whose ideas reshaped economic policy in the twentieth century. The son of a Cambridge economist, he was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he belonged to the circle that became the Bloomsbury group. He served at the Treasury during the First World War, resigned from the British delegation at Versailles and denounced the settlement in The Economic Consequences of the Peace. His General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money of 1936 argued that governments must manage demand to prevent unemployment. He negotiated the postwar financial order at Bretton Woods, chaired the Arts Council and was made Baron Keynes in 1942.