The revolution that was - or wasn't: A meta-analysis of the Keynesian revolution debate

Following Lawrence Klein's designation of a 'Keynesian Revolution', the impact of John Maynard Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money has remained contested. While early interpretations viewed it as a refinement of neoclassical equilibrium theory, later accounts increasingly characterized it as revolutionary break. Drawing on a meta- synthesis of journal articles explicitly addressing the Keynesian Revolution, this paper shows that such claims are typically justified intuitively rather than on explicit philosophy-of-science grounds, even after Thomas S. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Where analytical criteria are applied, conclusions hinge on whether Keynes's theory transforms the ontological and epistemological foundations of economics or merely modifies them. The findings suggest that most interpretations reflect intra-paradigmatic variation rather than a genuine scientific revolution suggesting 'a revolution that never was'.