When John Maynard Keynes visited Washington, D.C. in 1944, and met with professed Keynesians, he remarked that “I was the only non-Keynesian in the room.” Having read and fully agreed with Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, Keynes was plainly surprised by the perversion of his ideas by his ambitious disciples. Keynes was no longer a Keynesian.
Keynes's bemusement at the misunderstanding of his views came to mind recently when a thought piece produced at the Jack Kemp Foundation was forwarded to me. Though surely well-meaning, the write-up revealed almost none of the late Jack Kemp's understanding of money. Worse were the myriad factual inaccuracies, including a Bretton Woods monetary agreement that took place after World War II. Except that it took place in 1944. It didn't seem fair. Kemp's not around to correct what's being associated with his good name.
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