There’s an interesting idea here, presented primarily in the quotation from Kalecki from 1943.  The idea is that “business leaders” want to be in control of unemployment — that’s the real point of supply-side economics — but Keynes showed how the government could actually control unemployment, if it dares.  And since ten, the business community has been whining about lack of “confidence” as the cause of unemployment, whenever the government screws up (screws the people) and lets unemployment rise.

Paul Krugman says:

“It’s becoming clear to me that a substantial number of writers on economics find the whole idea that the economy can suffer because people are too thrifty, insufficiently willing to spend, deeply repugnant. I’m the sort of person who finds the notion that sometimes virtue is vice and prudence folly interesting; but it’s clear that a number of people find that notion just plain evil. The world shouldn’t be like that — and therefore it isn’t.”

Some people can’t help but see everything as a moral allegory.  Some of those see most everything as evil (except themselves and people like themselves), but most of them just can’t see anything they regard as evil.

If you’re a regular reader of nytimes.com you’ll love this. If not, then, well, maybe you should be?