Bastiat: In Favor of Counter-Cyclical Public Spending
Daniel Kuehn draws our attention to this passage , sorely neglected in modern, popular articles claiming that Keynes is a blithering idiot who didn't get Bastiat: "As a temporary measure in a time of crisis, during a severe winter, this [spending on public works] on the part of the taxpayer could have good effects. It acts in the same way as insurance. It adds nothing to the number of jobs nor to total wages, but it takes labor and wages from ordinary times and doles them out, at a loss it is true, in difficult times."