Conclusion
It is clear that, by the 1930s, Keynes believed that the major economic problem that had confronted Britain throughout the interwar years now afflicted the USA and other mature capitalist countries.
The problem was deeply rooted long-term or secular stagnation. In this chapter, I have tried to demonstrate that convincing the reader that secular stagnation was real and deeply rooted was Keynes's major theoretical objective in the sections of The General Theory that dealt with underemployment equilibriums. One might argue as Schumpeter did that it was the major theoretical objective of the book.In Chapter 20, I will show that Keynes's major policy objective in The General Theory was to convince the reader that the only adequate solution for this long-term stagnation problem was a revolution in Britain's political economy that would replace the current malfunctioning and archaic capitalist system with a form of democratic socialism. In the new economy, the state would directly control or guide the lion's share of large-scale capital investment and use this power, aided by capital controls, progressive tax policy, industrial policies, and sustained expansionary monetary policy to generate and sustain full employment and to sharply reduce income and wealth inequality.