Right-wing groupie tank/magazine Human Events has published their picks for the ten most harmful books of the 19th and 20th centuries. The list lumps in Mao and Hitler with Betty Friedan and John Maynard Keynes. The entry explaining Keynes’ inclusion was particularly funny:
Keynes was a member of the British elite–educated at Eton and Cambridge–who as a liberal Cambridge economics professor wrote General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in the midst of the Great Depression. The book is a recipe for ever-expanding government. When the business cycle threatens a contraction of industry, and thus of jobs, he argued, the government should run up deficits, borrowing and spending money to spur economic activity. FDR adopted the idea as U.S. policy, and the U.S. government now has a $2.6-trillion annual budget and an $8-trillion dollar debt.
Riiiigght, the current deficit is FDR’s fault. It’s not like there are any other presidents who could more fairly be blamed.
What about the critique of Friedan, you’re wondering? It contains absolutely no content apart from red-baiting.
(Curtsy: Being Amber Rhea).
I must say, there’s something frightening and amusing about the fact that JS Mill’s ‘On Liberty’ rated an honourable mention.
Of course, I always love when “The Nazis liked it” is dragged out as though it’s a sufficient reason to hate Nietzsche. Shall we follow that line of reasoning through and go around hating white people, Mr. Conservative? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Hi there,
As I recall, Reagan’s policies were called “military Keynesianism”…also known as pump priming, and certainly derived from Keynes’s arguments. All US govermnents engage in Keynesianism of one kind or another–it’s just that some elect to spend the money on roads, suburbanization, and the WPA (not neccessarily an unambigiously good thing) and others elect to spend on guns and bombs and contractors to build prisons.
It’s one of the great myths of the modern era that Republicans are fiscally responsible. How ironic, considering that the deficit decreased under Carter, increased under Reagan and Bush the Elder, decreased under Clinton to the point we had a surplus, and then increased again under Bush the Lesser.
This other chart from zfacts is rather revealing, too.
Wait – you mean declaring useless wars while cutting trillions of dollars in taxes isn’t fiscally responsible. My mind has been thoroughly blown!!!
Although you’re behind the curve a bit on this one. Still, it’s nice to be reminded how fucking insane conservatives are.