In this article, I argue that Keynes relevance in the current crisis goes deeper than these extensive but superficial references to him reveal. Like several others e.g. Susan George (2007), George Monbiot (2003) and Joseph Stiglitz (2006) I take Keynes original proposals at the Bretton Woods conference of 1944 as the starting point for reconstructing world economic and monetary governance for a post-neoliberal world. Unlike them, however, I explain Keynes defeat at Bretton Woods, historically and argue that prospects for an acceptance of his ideas are better today. Unlike them, I also attempt to restore to Keynes ideas their original coherence and integrity. This is necessary because the real inspiration behind Keynes original Bretton Woods proposals is only dimly understood; because these proposals are not easily separated from his ideas about the management of domestic economies for full employment; because, taken together, these ideas constitute a far more radical critique of capitalism than is usually appreciated; because, and partly as a consequence, important disputes over the interpretation of Keynes own ideas, especially between his influential followers who sought to assimilate him into the neoclassical economics he criticised and the small band of those who sought to rescue him from this fate, persist; because the left, for the most part, has tended to see Keynes as a mere reformist and thus not worthy of attention; and because the reasons why so many of the key elements of Keynes proposals were rejected at Bretton Woods remain unclear.
