In section 6, chapter 15 of volume one of Capital, Marx takes on the insistence by "a whole series of bourgeois political economists" "that all machinery that displaces workmen, simultaneously and necessarily sets free an amount of capital adequate to employ the same identical workmen." In a 1934 BBC radio broadcast, Keynes contended with "those who believed that the existing economic system is in the long run self-adjusting, though with creaks and groans and jerks, and interrupted by time-lags, outside interference and mistakes."
Although differing in emphasis -- with Marx stressing "new and additional capital that is seeking investment" and Keynes relying on a rate of interest low enough to encourage "just the right amount of production of capital goods" -- the two arguments are otherwise quite similar. They both, in fact, dismiss a view that Jevons upheld as "a principle recognised in many parallel instances" and which forms the basis for his insistence that *"It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption *[emphasis in original]." That is to say, both Marx and Keynes indirectly repudiated the so-called Jevons Paradox when they rejected the parallel principle it was *explicitly*based on. This is both good news and seemingly bad news. The good news is that a consumption "rebound" is not the inevitable outcome of increased energy efficiency. That "bad" news is that, given the conventional notion of a job, "job creation" and fuel consumption are yoked inseparably together. I'll have more to say later. -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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