Re: Surplus Value or Profit - Keynes

["Harry Veeder" <eo200@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>John V:
>> "the GT is a work in progress and not a Holy Writ."

>Sean R:
>> I disagree.  To Keynes it was complete and that is why he published it.
>> If he did not think so, then he might have named it "Toward a GT of Money,
>> Interest, and Employment."  But, he did not, he named it, "The General
>> Theory of Money, Interest, and Employment."

Gunnar T:
>This is what Keynes had to say on the subject matter:
>
>"There are other criticisms [of the General Theory] also which I should be
>ready to debate.  But tho I might be able to justify my own language, I am
>anxious not to be led, through doing so in too much detail, to overlook the
>substantial points which may, nevertheless, underlie the reactions which my
>treatment has produced in the minds of my critics.  I am more attached to
>the comparatively simple fundamental ideas which underlie my theory than to
>the particular forms in which I have embodied them, and I have no desire
>that the latter should be crystalized at the present stage of the debate.
>If the simple basic ideas can become familiar and acceptable, time and
>experience and the collaboration of a number of minds will discover the best
>way of expressing them." ('The General Theory of Employment', in The
>Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1037).
>

I guess those who see the GT as a work in progress  believe Keynes'
"fundamental ideas" are sound but the particular forms in which
they have been embodied are not completely satisfactory. Many though
question the soundness of his fundamental ideas and I think this is
what Gunnar meant by the GT not being a holy writ. However, a good
critique of Keynes fundamental ideas is not going come from probing
his work for logical inconsistencies. It will come from offering
competing ideas based on an alternative metaphysical understanding
of the world and the human mind.

Harry Veeder