Flying the flag for a Keynesian revival | Letters
I threw my metaphorical hat in the air and gasped "at last" when I read your editorial (Keynes' ideas worked in the 1940s, and now they are due a comeback, 17 February). Between 1945 and the 1970s, working-class living standards rose at an unprecedented rate, with full employment, housing standards transformed for millions by the building of quality council housing, free healthcare and secondary education, the establishment of the wider welfare state and much more. The genius of Keynes was at the heart of this revolution. I grew up in that world and was taught Keynesian economics as a student in the 1960s.
It was a tragedy that Keynesianism was later trashed and suppressed by the intellectual inferiors of monetarism, neoliberalism and globalisation. They were vengeful and profoundly wrong in all they propounded in their counter-revolution. JK Galbraith and others spelt this out, but were ignored in a rampant ideological drive to the right.
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