ABSTRACT
The publication in 1936 of the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money represented a fundamental break with the past and led over the space of a few years to the birth of modern macroeconomics. Keynes's ideas, however, have been simplified and occasionally distorted, leading to a distinction between 'Keynesianism' and 'Keynes's economics' (cf. Leijonhufvud, 1968), each in turn having many different interpretations. Without wishing to play down the simplifying nature of 'Keynesianism', it is difficult to share the view of purists for whom all the weaknesses of modern macroeconomics derive from its infidelities to the teachings of the Master. Keynes himself was at times ambiguous or obscure - a side effect of his powerful intuition. He probably pursued purely aggregative reasoning too far in the General Theory, in response to criticisms of his Treatise on Money.
