The failure of <insert utopian ideology here> was not that it wasn't relatively enlightened compared to the <insert dystopian idologue here> fundamentalists, but that it depended on the continued enlightenment of society and polity to survive.
The Federalist #51
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
The political centre has moved so far to the right, that only the out and out class warriors are at the centre of it. Basically the rich have been able to reverse the New Deal and re-assign the political system to themselves. The problem is not with the economics, but with the realities of the political order, and only a political revolution can change that. "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
It was a very quiet revolution, but effective because - as Techno says - the Keynesians had weaknesses. In the middle of an energy crisis it was easy to throw out the Keynesian message and replace it with monetarist crankiness.
Now we've had twenty years of crank economics flopping around incontinently in the mainstream, with the inevitable hilarious results.
