Re: Monetary production versus monetary exchange economies

[Bruce McFarling <ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 08 Dec 2001 12:18:30 -0500, Gunnar Tómasson
<gunnar.tomasson@xxxxxxxxxxx> writing regarding his
reading of the General Theory, says, regarding my
observation that:

>>there just aint not single macroeconomic "factor market" in
>>sight in the passage that you quote [so that]
>>it is not the quote that is leading to the conclusion,
>>but the newly admitted premise, drawn from the neoclassical
>>school of twentieth century economics rather than the
>>classical school of the preceding century and more

Says that this:

>is - as a moment's reflection should make clear - wholly
>inconsistent with Bentham's statement ...

>"If the fresh money, on the occasion of the first employment
>or expenditure made of it, is employed in purchases, the
>immediate effect of which is to make an immediate addition to
>the mass of really productive capital, it then makes by the
>amount of such purchase a clear addition to the growing mass
>of real wealth, beyond what would have existed otherwise."

Only a trained incapacity to think about questions such as
these without reliance on a fictitious mega-market for
factor services would find such a hypothetical mega-market
in this statement.  IOW, it is during the suggested moment's
reflection that this ficitious mega-market is being retroduced
into the above quote.

There is nothing in the above statement at all inconsistent
with a variety of transactions taking place under a variety
of specific institutions, some market institutions and some
otherwise, with the whole system NOT acting "as if" it was a
single fictitious mega-market.

In other words, you can't even find it without the same
process of reading your own premises into the work when
quoting from BENTHAM, who would surely be the richest
source of material for this sort of anachronistic reading
of neoclassical theory in classical works ... certainly
richer than Smith, Ricardo, or Mill.


Virtually,

Bruce McFarling, Shortland, NSW
ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx