ABSTRACT
Rarely, it seems, is the term “revolution” or “revolutionary” employed judiciously. Perhaps owing to the need to expedite, and thereby instantiate, that which is at the germinal stages of development, Americans are often eager to usher in “new” eras of thought. We need only look to the “Reagan Revolution” and its rhetorical acolytes to witness an inchoate revolution, one whose celebrations were muted by unprecedented federal deficits. Occasionally, though, ideas and their progenitors are deserving of the revolutionary label; one such figure is the English economist John Maynard Keynes-a thinker whose vernacular has become so ingrained in the discourse of United States government fiscal policy that it functions as a dead metaphor. In fact, simply to invoke
the phrase “government fiscal policy” is to cite the Keynesian idiom. “True” revolutionaries, as Kenneth Burke might argue, are those who literally change the terms of debate.
