'General Theory 4.0' research programme: macroeconomics when Keynes eventually escapes Debreu and meets Ulysses and Einstein.

This article proposes a new research programme, termed "General Theory (GT) 4.0," aimed at restoring the academic influence of John Maynard Keynes by defending his view that macroeconomics is an autonomous discipline distinct from standard general equilibrium theory. It advances two complementary lines of defence: first, employing the metaphor of "Ulysses' journey home" to intuitively represent Keynes's key autonomy claims regarding macroeconomic instability, monetary economy, and the non-homogeneity of time; second, drawing an analogy between Keynes's approach and Einstein's relativity theory to argue that Keynes's insights share a similar revolutionary ontology and epistemology, though Keynes did not formalize his claims with clear postulates as Einstein did. The paper critiques mainstream macroeconomics for misinterpreting Keynes by subsuming his aggregates under microfoundations and real-exchange frameworks, and it suggests that recognizing Keynes's theory as the "economics of low inflation" clarifies its domain of validity and generality. Overall, the article calls for a renewed Keynesian research agenda that embraces his original instability view and its scientific foundations to better address macroeconomic phenomena.