“None of this is true. That Keynes was a Keynesian—of that much derided Keynesian system provided by Hicks, Hansen, Samuelson, and Modigliani”

Rothbard is wrong. Keynes was not a “neoclassical synthesis Keynesian” like Hicks and Samuelson. In fact, they diluted his work and took a step backwards by re-introducing flawed neoclassical ideas like (1) the view that involuntary unemployment was only due to inflexible wages and prices, (2) the neutral money axiom, (3) the gross substitution axiom and (4) the ergodicity of the future axiom, contrary to Keynes’s General Theory.

If you want to understand the 3 strands of Keynesianism and why Post Keynesianism is the school that more accurately reflects Keynes’ own thinking, see here:

http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2010/07/three-varieties-of-keynesianism.html.

The left wins because they embrace Alinsky tactics. We need to out Alinsky the Alinskyites.

Was Keynes probably kind of a douchebag? Sure. But who cares? From what I’ve read, von Mises could be quite disagreeable himself at times. It doesn’t make von Mises any less right, or Keynes any more wrong, to point out their personality quirks. It just seems kind of unnecessary.

Call them ad hominem attacks if you like. But if one person is somewhat disagreeable in person and his policies if followed would lead to peace and prosperity, and another person is superficially charming but deep down appears to have a strong inclination toward a love of power combined with ignorance and who writes policy prescriptions in which this egotism and ignorance are the most outstanding features … then I think that their personalities or if you prefer their underlying psychologies should be discussed.

BTW, Steven Kates had some interesting comments on what he saw as Keynes’s duplicity in this lecture; http://mises.org/media/4769

And for the record, Hayek felt Keynes would indeed have stood with him in that situation.

As for the first of the three points the author raises, I tend to believe that Keynes was indeed a megalomaniac, because of an anecdote told by Hayek long after Keynes was dead. Supposedly, Keynes said he could easily rein in those Keynesians who were going too far with Keynesianism. Six months later, however, he was dead, and could not rein them in. This story leads me to believe that Keynes’ “theories” were not in fact an attempt to determine truth, but an attempt to manipulate peoples’ behavior, as though Keynes were the puppetmaster and everyone else the puppets.

As for the second point, Keynes was the director of the British Eugenics Society for 7 years. Since eugenicists seldon think that they themselves are not superior, Keynes was apparently pretty sure that he was one of the chosen people.

As for hating middle class values, it’s well known that he was a “sensualist”, bisexual, and a member of the elitist/libertinist Bloomsbury Group.

So I think it’s probably safe to say that the charges leveled against Keynes are correct, even though the way Rothbard expressed them might have been a bit spiteful.