What can civil society expect from academic macroeconomics?

Academic macroeconomics as it has been practiced for the last three decades has a bad reputation, especially after the onset of the 2008 recession. The aim of this paper is to reflect on this state of affairs. To begin, I draw a comparison between Keynesian and Lucasian macroeconomics, bringing to light that they are based on different tenets. Next, I claim that because of its higher internal consistency, Lucasian macroeconomics is superior to Keynesian. However, I also claim that espousing it bears a heavy price — in particular a limited usefulness for policymaking and an inability to come to grips with economic crises.