John Maynard Keynes

One colossus of twentieth-century economics assesses the work and influence of another. Milton Friedman argues that John Maynard Keynes (1833-1946) left two principal legacies. The first, to technical, scientific economics, was embodied in his Tract on Monetary Reform (1923), his Treatise on Money (1930), and his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). The other, to politics, was his belief in benevolent policymakers advised by elite and incorruptible civil servants. Of the two legacies Friedman judges the second to have been the more influential in the realm of public policy, even though he questions its validity.