PKT message, Re: Case solved, at last!

John-Baptiste Say, *Treatise on Political Economy; or the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth,* Chapter XV, in various editions and translations:

"It is common to hear adventurers in the different channels of industry
assert, that their difficulty lies not in the production, but in the
disposal of commodities; that produce would always be abundant, if there
were but a ready demand, or vent. When the vent for their commodities
is slow, difficult, and productive of little advantage, they pronounce
money to be scarce; the grand object of their desire is, a consumption
brisk enough to quicken sales and keep up prices...A man, who applies
his labour to the investing of objects with value by the creation of
utility of some sort, cannot expect that the value to be appreciated and
paid for, unless where other men have the means of purchasing it. Now,
of what do those means consist? Of other values, of other products,
likewise the fruit of industry, capital and land. Which leads us to a
conclusion, that may at first sight appear paradoxical; vis. that it is
production which opens a demand for products...

"Wherefore, it is products that you want, and not money. The silver
coin you will have received on the sale of your own products, and given
in the purchase of those of other people, will the next moment execute
the same office between other contracting parties, and so from one to
another to infinity; just as a public vehicle successively transports
objects one after another. If you cannot find a ready sale for your
commodity, will you say, it is merely for want of a vehicle to transport
it? For after all, money is but the agent of the transfer of values.
Its whole utility has consisted in conveying to your hands the value of
the commodities, which your customer has sold, for the purpose of buying
again from you; and the very next purchase you make, it will again
convey to a third person the value of the products you have sold to
others. So that you will have bought, and everybody must buy, the
objects of want or desire, each with the value of his respective
products transformed into money for the moment only. Otherwise, how
could it be possible, that there should now be bought and sold in France
five or six times as many commodities, as in the miserable reign of
Charles VI? Is it not obvious, that five or six times as many
commodities must have been produced, and that they must have served to
purchase one the other?"

>From: pdavidso

>To: Gunnar Tómasson

>CC: pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>Subject: Re: Case solved, at last!

>Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 23:19:37 -0500

> >===== Original Message From Gunnar Tómasson

>=====

> >

> >In the General Theory, Keynes cited John Stuart Mill and Alfred Marshall on

>the subject matter of Say's Law, inter alia, as follows.

> >

> >Mill: "All sellers are inevitably, and by the meaning of the word, buyers."

> >

>CAN ANYONE GIVE ME THE CORRECT CITATION (BOOK, PUBLISHER DATE, ANY PERHAPS

>EVEN PAGE REFERENCE) FOR JOHN STUART MILL'S FORMULATION OF SAY'S LAW

>AND ALSO JOHN BAPTISTE SAY'S ORGINAL REFERENCE FOR HIS LAW??

>PAUL

>Paul Davidson

>Editor, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics

>University of Tennessee

>SMC 523

>Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0550

>phone # (865)974-4221; fax #(561)737-8262;

>email pdavidson@xxxxxxx

>http://econ.bus.utk.edu/Davidson.html