“Keynes NEVER advocated continual deficits run by governments”
He did advocate them to counteract recession, yes? Funny thing happens, then, when your policies result in continual recessions. The deficits become continual all on their own.
“Keynes attempted to explain why the traditional methods of the Neo-Classical school of Economics (Marshall for example) did not seem to be working to revive the Western democracies’ economies from the Great Depression.”
In doing so he rejected not just noeclassicism but also the classical classicism of Say, Smith, and Ricardo, bringing us all the way back to the good old days of mercantilism.
Yes, he proposed that the government could balance off recessions with spending but periods of expansion that was to be reduced and surpluses run. Most of our governmental debt came from the costs of War though the War on Poverty added another component and Urkel has increased that massively. Keynes was certainly naive to expect politicians would be responsible.
I don’t think it is fair to claim he rejected traditional economics (any more than each generation of economists reject its progenitors) rather he added some tools to the toolbox with which to examine economic affairs. His success is measured by the continued discussion of his ideas and the search for explanations of why he was wrong or right.