Keynes Vs Smith

How can John Maynard Keynes be compared to Adam Smith? Both of these men are considered to be the molders and theorizers of the economic era, yet they were very different in their theories and ideas.
It takes more than a pretty face to identify an individual as the “father” of a particular subject, but considering the fact that economics was not even an area of study prior to Adam Smith’s contribution, it is easy to say that he, in fact, is the “father of economics.” Smith was a wide-ranging social philosopher and economist whose masterwork, The Wealth of Nations, is one of the most influential studies of Western civilization. It was right after the publication of The Wealth of Nations in 1776 that the study of economics was born. It was
Smith who presented economics as a discipline of its own, laying the framework of free market that still holds true today. Smith believed that market prices and quantities should be allowed to change and adjust to their “equilibrium” levels without the government getting involved.
Consequently, Smith was opposed to the system of mercantilism where the government exerted a lot of control over the economy by regulating production and trade in order to bring back gold and silver. Smith therefore felt that the wealth of a nation lied in the hands of individual people, and that if the government backed off and allowed individuals to make economic decisions on their own that the nations wealth would increase. After spending time in France with the Physiocrats, he began to advocate the theory of laissez-faire, which basically required government to stay out of trade and let prices naturally change. Smith believed that if people promoted their self-interest, led by what he called an invisible hand, they would ultimately maximized their personal contribution to society and the economy. Along with Smith’s major contributions to the social economy, he also gave political advice. A highly respected philosopher during American colonial period, Smith advised Great Britain against keeping control of the colonies, saying that the cost of maintaining the colonies outweighed any profit or benefit they brought for England. After the American Revolution when the United States became an independent nation, Smith then expressed his opinion on the role of the government in the American
economy. Smith believed that the government had one important role to play in the field of economics and that was to enforce contracts and grant patents and copyrights to encourage inventions and new ideas. He felt that besides those duties, the government should not play any other role in economic life.
John Maynard Keynes is undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the history of modern economics. Keynes made much of his world economic theories based on his beliefs in his most important work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. In order to secure a stable economy, Keynes promoted the use of government intervention when the United States got into a lot of financial trouble at the start of the Great Depression. However, the president at the time, Roosevelt, was against spending taxpayers’ money to allow the nation to get into a nationwide deficit. When Roosevelt was out of all other ideas to help the country’s financial situation, he implemented Keynesian Economics and ultimately the economy improved. Along with his ideas and theories on the role of government in the economy, Keynes also believed that inflation and unemployment were necessary to keep the economy balanced. Even though he felt that in desperate times of need the government should inject government spending into the income stream, he also believed that unemployment and inflation would eventually work themselves out on their own without the interference of the government.