“There is one good thing about Marx: He was not a Keynesian.”
—Murray N. Rothbard
To further celebrate the Year of Rothbard, the Mises Institute will give away a different Rothbard book each month through December 31.
This month’s featured Rothbard book is Keynes the Man. In a particularly noteworthy lecture on Keynes, Rothbard began his presentation with the following remark:
“First of all, I’d like to launch a preemptive strike against any critics who might accuse this talk of being ad hominem. In the first place, the ad hominem fallacy is that...instead of attacking the doctrine of a person, you attack the person, and that’s fallacious, and that doesn’t refute the argument. I’ve never been in favor of that. I’ve always been in favor of refuting the doctrine and then going on to attack the person!”
Keynes the Man follows in this spirit, providing a short history of John Maynard Keynes and connecting elements of his personal life with his resulting intellectual output, which has been a disaster for the civilized world. While this essential work provides a careful character study of the scholar, it does so within the context of the battle against his ideas that continues to this day.
Ever since Ludwig von Mises escaped the devastation of World War II, the primary source of catastrophic economic folly that the Austrian School fights against has been the Keynesian Revolution in different forms. Marx may have captured various cultural disciplines in universities, but it is the Keynesian Revolution that captured economics and that is even behind the mistakes of Friedmanite libertarians.
With this short book, you will be equipped to tear down this intellectual weed, root and stem. Each person can order up to 5 copies for personal use and to share with friends interested in dissecting one of the great villains of the modern world. If your friends need more convincing to dive into Keynes the Man, consider sharing the classic Rothbardian quip above: “There is one good thing about Marx: He was not a Keynesian.”
June 30 is the deadline to get your free copy of Keynes the Man—up to 5 copies per order, 1 order per person—to share with friends and family. And be on the lookout for our next Rothbard giveaway book on July 1.
