We are all slaves of defunct ideologues

I may be becoming a binarian in my old age: I'm more accepting of simple divisions now. One is between purists and pragmatists. I try to stay in the latter camp, but I fail, of course. I stumbled on this John Maynard Keyes' quote a few minutes ago:

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt f...