John C. Medaille wrote in regard to the query about Keynes worthiness of a footnote reference in a contemporary text: 

?It could be from Paul Heyne's textbook, "The Economic Way of Thinking." On pg. 407, he says "The General Theory...is by common agreement an obscure and badly organized book. ...but no one quite knew what the essential message was." The  comment about The GT being "badly  organized" is a direct but un-attributed quote  from J. K. Galbraith's  "A Journey Through Economic Time," pg. 98?


This all sounds suspiciously like Paul Samuelson?s famous statement from his classic 1946 Econometrica article (July 1946, vol. 14 and reprinted in Robert Lekatchman?s Keynes?s General Theory:Reports of Three Decades where the following quotes are taken from). There Samuelson wrote in regard to the General Theory: 

          ?It is a badly written book, poorly organized; any layman who, beguiled by the author?s previous reputation, bought the book was cheated of his five shillings. It is not well suited for classroom use. It is arrogant, bad-tempered, polemical and not overly generous in its acknowledgements. It abounds in mares? nests or confusions?. In it the Keynesian system stands out indistinctly, as if the author were hardly aware of its existence or cognizant of it properties, and certainly he is at his worst when expounding its relations to its predecessors. Flashes of insight and intuition intersperse tedious algebra. An awkward definition suddenly gives way to an unforgettable cadenza. When finally mastered, its analysis is found to be obvious and at the same time new. In short, it is a work of genius.? (pp 318-19)

And in that same article Samuelson added this: 

          ?I must confess that my own first reaction to the General Theory was not at all like that of Keats on first looking into Chapman?s Homer. No silent watcher, I, upon a peak in Darien. My rebellion against its pretensions would have been complete, except for an uneasy realization that I did not at all understand what it was about. And I think I am giving away no secrets when I solemnly aver ? upon the basis of vivid personal recollection ? that no one else in Cambridge, Massachusetts, really knew what it was about for some twelve to eighteen months after its publication. Indeed, until the appearance of the mathematical models of Meade, Lange, Hicks, and Harrod, there is reason to believe that Keynes himself did not truly understand his own analysis.? (p 316)

And if indeed ?some well-known author referred to Keynes's economics as worth at most a footnote in contemporary economic texts? this would merely be a reflection of the sad state of the history of economics in the modern education of an economist rather than being a just reflection of Keynes?s contribution to present day economics. That Keynesian economics permeates modern macroeconomics would surely not be in doubt if in that footnote mention was made of Keynes?s most lasting contribution to economics which is the concept of aggregate demand. And as just one piece of evidence, let me one last time bring in Samuelson?s article, and quote what is after all a statement by one who was there at the time: 

          ?I myself believe the broad significance of the General Theory to be in the fact that it provides a relatively realistic, complete system for analyzing the level of effective demand and its fluctuations.? (p321) 

Given that economic theory had disdained such analyses before this time, it must truly be said that however one might wish to ignore Keynes and the General Theory, however one might choose to believe that all of that has been transcended, however one might prefer to leave Keynes?s name to the footnotes, if we are going to keep the record straight, whenever and wherever one comes across those ever-present aggregate demand curves, one should silently acknowledge that they are direct modern descendants of those ideas that arose out of Keynes?s work in the 1930s. 

Steven Kates