Let us further suppose that, due to obstructionist Republicans, only 500 goats were sacrificed. Could Krugman not have then continued to argue that the failure to achieve the stated objective of keeping unemployment under 8% resulted entirely from not sacrificing the extra 500 goats? Could he not continue arguing, week after week, that IF ONLY we had done what he, as the prophet of Zeus demanded, everything would have been fine?
In practical fact, the argument is made that even though the “stimulus” appears to have done nothing but increase our national debt, that things would have been WORSE if we had not done it.
Again, would the argument change in any salient, meaningful way, if the argument were over goat sacrifices? I don’t see that it would.
Take any ritual you want, intended to accomplish anything you want, and you can say that it prevented something worse from happening. Imagine I took it into my head that the only thing that prevents a meteor from falling on my head is throwing rock candy over my left shoulder every morning and reciting the Hail Mary. Does not every day that I don’t get hit by a meteor further validate my belief?
I wish I could say this were satire, that I were in some respect exaggerating. But I am not.
And never forget that Keynes argued quite openly for Fascism–albeit without calling it by name–in his most important book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.
I wonder how many people citing his ideas have actually read what he wrote? I have most of his books on my shelf.