"Hayek devoted his life to exposing the intellectual errors of socialism. But many of those he was anxious to reach and convince were not socialists, but liberals and conservatives. The intellectual opponent who provided the most searching challenge to Hayek to Hayek's worldview was not on the Left, but a fellow liberal–John Maynard Keynes. Hayek's work can be read at one level as a long debate with Keynes and the Keynesians over the political means and policies which would best safeguard a liberal society. Much of Hayek's political effort after 1945 was devoted to trying to reverse the influence of Keynes on economic and social policy."