EXPLORING THE NOTION OF UNCERTAINTY IN THE CAPITALIST ECONOMY

AN APPROACH FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE KEYNESIAN SCHOOL

Abstract

Through the publication of his seminal work called “General Theory of Employment, Interest and Currency”, in 1936, British economist John Maynard Keynes laid the foundations of his macroeconomic theory, disseminated to this day on a global level. Historically, in its essence, Keynesian theory emerged with the aim of radically contesting and opposing the ideals and conceptions hitherto imposed by the neoclassical economic model. For adherents of neoclassical economics, the existence of instabilities and inconstancies in the capitalist production system was commonly disregarded. In this sense, Keynesianism struggled, since its creation, to escape the hitherto predominant “economic orthodoxy”. From a Keynesian perspective, among other assumptions, economic agents needed to understand how they should act in the face of uncertain scenarios and high levels of risk and ambiguities. Based on the contextualization exposed, this article's central objective is to explore the notion of uncertainty within the scope of the capitalist economy, based on the approaches proposed and disseminated by Keynesianism. To achieve this proposal, a bibliographic review was used as a central research methodology, structured and conducted based on a previously carried out Systematic Literature Review (SLR). The results obtained from the research demonstrate that Keynes' General Theory and his approaches to risk and uncertainty, in particular, continue to be studied and analyzed by a multitude of post-Keynesian authors in order to understand the structures and dimensions that exist in the economy of Marketplace. It is concluded, therefore, that the Keynesian current still maintains followers at a global level.