Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th

A conservative magazine (Human Events) enlisted some folks to name the

Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

Not surprisingly, The Communist Manifesto topped the list by a wide margin. The amusing part, and I wouldn’t be posting this if there wasn’t one, is #10 General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by Keynes. Here’s part of the Human Events summary:

The book is a recipe for ever-expanding government. When the business cycle threatens a contraction of industry, and thus of jobs, he argued, the government should run up deficits, borrowing and spending money to spur economic activity. FDR adopted the idea as U.S. policy, and the U.S. government now has a $2.6-trillion annual budget and an $8-trillion dollar debt.

Regardless of what one may think of FDR, the fact is that he had some pretty difficult challenges as President (the Great Depression and World War II). And yep, he did run up the debt. What’s funny though is that this paragraph wants to saddle the Democrat FDR with our current $8 trillion debt, which is more largely attributable to Republicans Reagan, Bush I and Bush II.