There is a big opposition is between classical liberals and keynesians. As Marxism showed its inefficiency, the opposition spread a lot between those two theories. Let’s figure out what they arise from to get a good figure of what they offer.
First liberalism spreads from the fact « chaos » may be more efficient than a planfied order. To this extend it is born in the greek materialists, who claim that nothing is really « logical ». The philosopher David Hume talks about empiricism, and that everything is linked to experiment. Before him John Locke told that « the spirit is a white page », and that experience builds everything. That is the reason why it necessary to tell that imagination and creativity are put in the center of the game. The emergence of capitalism is linked to the spread of mobiliar property, contrary to the feodal age linked to immobiliar property. That is the reason why imagination and creativity are the conditions of progress. Tocqueville will say that the americans are the most pragmatic concerning entrepreneurship.
However the emergence of socialism made disappear the traditional opposition between the liberals and the conservatives. The disparition of traditional protection structures, promoted by laws like the french le Chapellier laws that forbade associations to defend workers spread everywhere in Europe. That is the reason why it is necessary for them to build new protections and a renewed social system. An opposition rised between the reformators and the revolutionaries : the first want to make capitalism a better place ; the others want to go beyond it (or destroy it). That is the reason why it is necessary for them to build something that is allowing the system to get a more human view.
But the first rival to classical liberal will be eventually the keynesians. Some rules differ from the classical economists : they consider than the markets cannot be planned in the long run. That is the reason why the behavior of entrepreneurs is important to take into account. Contrary to the classicals, the keynesians think it is important not to set the markets completely free : « on the long run they will be all dead ». That is the reason why keynesianism is a way to approach this situation a different way : it is telling, based on probabilities, that it is possible to predicts some economical facts only in the long run. Moreover the system is based on the important rôle given to money, contrary to the word of the liberal Jean Baptiste Say who said that « money is a veil ». For those reasons the way the economy is approached is very different.
Anyway why keysnesians can be considered more like « philosophers » and liberals as « creators ». In my opinion liberalism is based on creativity, because it stems from the fact chaos has the best « hidden » order. Hegel will tell, in his book the reason in history that the apparent chaos is leading to a rational order. On the contrary keynesians try to fight the rôle of chance : they try to elaborate an order, in the long run. Keynes studied a lot probabilities to try to fight the rôle of chance in the economical predictions. The « animal instinct » of the entrepreneur shows that. That is the reason why it is necessary for him to build theories that, in the long run are fighting the uncontrollable part of the economy. Those two approaches are as well rivals, this rivalry is still continuing today.
The observer 