The way Krugman puts it, it's remarkable what the conventional wisdom says about Keynes...

Keynes did not, despite what you may have heard, want the government to run the economy. He described his analysis in his 1936 masterwork, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money," as "moderately conservative in its implications." He wanted to fix capitalism, not replace it. But he did challenge the notion that free-market economies can function without a minder, expressing particular contempt for financial markets, which he viewed as being dominated by short-term speculation with little regard for fundamentals. And he called for active government intervention -- printing more money and, if necessary, spending heavily on public works -- to fight unemployment during slumps.

We are too ignorant either of what individual agency in its best form, or Socialism in its best form, can accomplish, to be qualified to decide which of the two will be the ultimate form of human society.

If a conjecture may be hazarded, the decision will probably depend mainly on one consideration, viz. which of the two systems is consistent with the greatest amount of human liberty and spontaneity.