before the Volcker shock ended the argument, very few people thought there was a market-based solution to the inflation crisis. Most thought the path out led through more extensive government controls and planning, deepening rather than constraining the power of democratic (or in the US, quasi-democratic) politics over private economic prerogatives. A generation of historians, following Alan Brinkley, have argued that American Keynesianism was powerful precisely because in promising to manage aggregate demand it foreswore any ambition of influencing the structure of production or distribution. But Keynesians like Tobin thought the 1970s demanded a microeconomic strategy, focused on industries and firms, to supplement the manipulation of aggregates.
Fantastically good point.