32 THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT BK. I

we shall find that the Theory of Prices falls into itsproper place as a matter which is subsidiary to ourgeneral theory. We shall discover, however, thatMoney plays an essential part in our theory of theRate of Interest; and we shall attempt to disentanglethe peculiar characteristics of Money which distinguishit from other things.

III

The idea that we can safely neglect the aggregatedemand function is fundamental to the Ricardianeconomics, which underlie what we have been taughtfor more than a century. Malthus, indeed, had vehe-mently opposed Ricardo’s doctrine that it was impos-sible for effective demand to be deficient; but vainly.For, since Malthus was unable to explain clearly (apartfrom an appeal to the facts of common observation)how and why effective demand could be deficient orexcessive, he failed to furnish an alternative construc-tion; and Ricardo conquered England as completelyas the Holy Inquisition conquered Spain. Not onlywas his theory accepted by the city, by statesmen andby the academic world. But controversy ceased; theother point of view completely disappeared; it ceasedto be discussed. The great puzzle of Effective De-mand with which Malthus had wrestled vanished fromeconomic literature. You will not find it mentioned evenonce in the whole works of Marshall, Edgeworth andProfessor Pigou, from whose hands the classical theoryhas received its most mature embodiment. It couldonly live on furtively, below the surface, in theunderworlds of Karl Marx, Silvio Gesell or MajorDouglas.

The completeness of the Ricardian victory is some-thing of a curiosity and a mystery. It must have beendue to a complex of suitabilities in the doctrine to theenvironment into which it was projected. That it