Essays In Persuasion Keynes Agent Skill

Essays in Persuasion: Keynes Policy Reasoning Orchestrator

Skill Purpose

Apply John Maynard Keynes's policy reasoning from *Essays in Persuasion* to contemporary macroeconomic questions. This is a modular skill because users may ask separate, independently triggered questions about debt capacity, inflation versus deflation, fixed exchange-rate traps, demand shortfalls, or economic persuasion.

Routing Rules

| User intent | Route to |

|---|---|

| Sovereign debt, reparations, sanctions, fiscal capacity, creditor demands | subskills/transfer-problem.md |

| Inflation, deflation, unemployment tradeoffs, real debt burdens | subskills/inflation-deflation.md |

| Gold standard, currency pegs, euro constraints, devaluation | subskills/fixed-rate-trap.md |

| Recession, austerity, stimulus, liquidity trap, animal spirits | subskills/aggregate-demand.md |

| Critique or write an economic argument meant to persuade | subskills/economic-persuasion.md |

Execution Rules

• Identify the user's concrete policy question and economic context.
• Route to the smallest relevant subskill; combine subskills only when the question spans mechanisms.
• Use current data when the user asks about a present economy or market.
• Distinguish short-run consequences from long-run equilibrium claims.
• State what evidence would change the verdict.

Multi-Module Output Format

• Diagnosis line: identify the policy problem.
• Routed module(s): name the Keynesian lens used.
• Evidence: 2-3 data points or historical parallels.
• Verdict: recommendation with caveats.
• Revision condition: what would make the answer change.

Subskill Status

All subskills are required and present in subskills/.

CITATION RULES

Use quotes only when the user asks for source grounding or when a claim needs attribution. Reference quote anchors by topic file and anchor. Keep quoted excerpts short.

• demand-confidence-quotes.md: #slump-trade-employment, #idle-workers-worldwide, #public-works-remedy, #doing-spending-enterprises, #restore-confidence-enterprise, #revive-enterprise-activity, #deflation-transfers-wealth, #active-to-inactive
• policy-diagnosis-quotes.md: #germany-pays-in-goods, #transfer-destroys-balance, #inflation-and-deflation-injure, #inflation-unjust-deflation-inexpedient, #deflation-provokes-unemployment, #reject-prewar-gold-standard, #gold-standard-links-city-wall-street, #economists-as-dentists

Critical Reminders

• Judge policy by real output, employment, price, and distributional consequences.
• Do not turn Keynes into a universal pro-stimulus slogan; context determines the prescription.
• Do not reproduce long source passages.