Calvin and Keynes

I read The Institutes of the Christian Religion long ago and  I came away convinced that Calvin was not a Calvinist, or least would not be willing to boil his theology down to the five points of Calvinism. 

Reading recently about Keynes, I have come to a similar conclusion.  He introduced the concept of macroeconomics, which has become a fundamental part of everyone's thinking about economics.  And he thought deficit spending during downturns would mitigate unemployment.  But he also assumed  that surpluses during expansions would pay back any debt accumulated by the government.

Further, he thought Hayek's Road to Serfdom was a great book.  Hayek asked Keynes just weeks before his death "... if he wasn't getting alarmed about what some of his pupils were doing with his ideas. And he said,' Oh, they're just fools. These ideas were frightfully important in the 1930s, but if these ideas ever become dangerous. you can trust me--I'm going to turn public opinion around like this.'" (Reason interview ) In light of this, I imagine Keynes would be horrified to see how his theory has become an excuse for redistributing wealth, and for bloated, deficit financed government, in good times and in bad.

Neo Keynesians have gone far beyond what Keynes would have found acceptable, just as latter day Calvinists have gone far beyond what John Calvin believed.