… is from page 156 of my emeritus colleague Charles Rowley’s essay “The Legacy of Keynes: from the General Theory to Generalized Budget Deficits,” which is chapter 8 in the important 1987 collection Deficits (James M. Buchanan, Charles K. Rowley, & Robert D. Tollison, eds.; footnote deleted):
Newly graduating economists of post-Second World War vintage, knew no other macroeconomics that that of Keynes. Weaned on Samuelson’s Economics, they carried the Keynesian interventionist message out of the academy and into government, business, and, especially, the media. By 1960, such Keynesians constituted an influential ‘intelligentsia’ within the Democratic Party. They provided the intellectual justification for a Great Society programme of fiscal prodigality, which the US Congress was independently eager to broker. The experiment failed, and Lyndon Johnson decided not to seek a second term. Although the failure edged the Keynesian research programme towards a state of crisis, the budget deficits, which were its outward manifestation, had come for a longer stay.
I’m very sorry and saddened to report that Charles died this past weekend after a brief illness. My and Russ’s condolences go to Marjorie and the rest of the Rowley family.
