I absolutely will not defend Keynes or any other idea in economics, inasmuch as they can possibly be implemented in the political process that decide on economic policies.
That said, I do not think this is a case of a bad economist.
Economics theory is theory... theory that attempts to quantify societal behaviour, various cooperation dynamics, measurable output, etc. None of them know how to deal with various problems like "quality" & "technology" even though all economists admit they are pretty important. These theories usually have money playing a central role in some way). Anyway, they're theories about people acting together in big groups economics calls markets.
Political dynamics is another piece of the puzzle. So is every other meme in society. In some place homosexuals are allowed by society. In some places it is banned. Why now? Why not in 1750 or 2235? There are theories about how to quantify and predict here too, but obviously the ability of theories about such things are not up to the task of making consistent predictions.
Asimov's "psychohistory" is a fictional discipline which is basically economics, historical determinism, political science etc. The fictional twist is that these theories can make consistent predictions within very usable margins of error.
Monetarism is just a theory of the transmission mechanism going from money supply->price level->output, with some variations. Their policy proposals have been quite diverse.
Keynes himself had differing policy recommendations, as well, but ultimately settled on what he called "socialization of investment" where the state would fill in certain entrepreneurial activities that the private sector is deemed to be lacking, though the specifics were elusive. Contracyclical fiscal policy was actually popularized by Alvin Hansen IIRC, and the more extreme functional finance favored by Post-Keynesians was formulated by Abba P. Lerner.
That said, I do not think this is a case of a bad economist.
Economics theory is theory... theory that attempts to quantify societal behaviour, various cooperation dynamics, measurable output, etc. None of them know how to deal with various problems like "quality" & "technology" even though all economists admit they are pretty important. These theories usually have money playing a central role in some way). Anyway, they're theories about people acting together in big groups economics calls markets.
Political dynamics is another piece of the puzzle. So is every other meme in society. In some place homosexuals are allowed by society. In some places it is banned. Why now? Why not in 1750 or 2235? There are theories about how to quantify and predict here too, but obviously the ability of theories about such things are not up to the task of making consistent predictions.
Asimov's "psychohistory" is a fictional discipline which is basically economics, historical determinism, political science etc. The fictional twist is that these theories can make consistent predictions within very usable margins of error.
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