Discussing the consequences of globalisation, Trautwein (2022, p. 1) has argued that ‘the reputation of economists as experts on globalisation is impaired since their discipline appears to have largely lost “the big picture” out of sight’, and he relates this to the interaction of three types of fragmentation: economic, political and scientific. Focussing on the issue of securing full employment in a globalised world economy, we will explore the ‘big pictures’ painted by Michał Kalecki and John Maynard Keynes and discuss commonalities and differences. This exploration will take place in two steps: First, we review the basic understanding of how to solve the long-run problems of full employment from the perspective of both authors and we discuss and compare the respective views on the political economy constraints to full employment. Second, we turn to the open economy constraints for full employment and how to deal with them from the perspectives of Kalecki and Keynes. Finally, we will relate our findings for the two authors to Trautwein’s (2022) conclusion of embedding economic globalisation and fragmentation into a ‘multi-level and multilateral governance’ system.