sults was a great increase in unemployment, and the unemployment was understood to be an excess supply of labor. The trouble encountered in the neoclassicists approach was that one theory of the Neoclassicists was that one could not have excess supply and equilibrium at the same time, so this was a problem for the neoclassical understanding of the economy. In an economy with unemployment, there are at least some markets; labor markets for example, in which supply and demand are not in equilibrium. Recall, the neoclassical economists had assumed that the employment of labor would be determined by the supply and demand for labor, along with the wage in purchasing power terms. The employment of labor, together with the productivity of labor, would determine production. If there is unemployment, then employment is not determined by supply and demand, since supply and demand are not in equilibrium. Then what determines employment? How could employment drop in all industries at once? It seemed to many people and some economists that, after 1929, the time had come for a new "new economics" that could answer that question.The General TheoryThis is where Keynes came in. The General Theory was hard to read in parts because of the rapid transitions between arguments for and against various concepts. The reasons for this is stated in an online textbook that generally follow the following reasoning for Keynes methods in writing the book. In order to anticipate, and minimize, the counterarguments that the neoclassicists were going to put forth based on money and interest, Keynes had to state the counterarguments himself. This is one of the things that made the book so hard to understand, as I said before Keynes sometimes seemed to be arguing against his own ideas, if only then to return to them. But confusing as that may be, it was Keynes way of dealing with his very committed critics in the economic world.That's why Keynes developed the Compl...
