Keynes’s popularity combined populist appeal with intellectual difficulty.

Evidence

This combination of timeliness, esotericism, and support for prevailing opinion proved extraordinarily potent because the book appeared to present a vitally important message on which much academic work remained to be done. As Albert Hirschman has observed, Keynes “managed to present common sense in paradox’s clothing and in fact made his theory doubly attractive: it satisfi ed at the same time the intellectuals’ craving for pop u lism and their taste for diffi culty and paradox.” — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 77

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Keynes’s economics angered market economists by validating populist policy instincts. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 77