Re: Case solved, at last!

[Bruce McFarling <ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 24 Dec 2001 13:17:38 -0500, Gunnar Tómasson
<gunnar.tomasson@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>I take it that neither Bruce nor Colin have read Baumol's
>article on Say's Law - or else have forgotten Say's opening
>words in Ch. 5 of 'Traité' cited by Baumol:

>"The magnitude of the demand for factors of production in general
>does not depend on the magnitude of consumption as all too many
>persons have imagined.  Consumption is not at all a cause, it is
>an effect.  In order to consume it is necessary to purchase; now,
>one can make purchases only with what one has produced."

On what evidence is this point taken ... the rather flimsy
argument that had Colin or I read this, we would have been
persuaded, therefore we did not read it?

However, since it undermines Gunnar's argument that we should
focus on an "implicit" foundation in a body of work developed
after Say wrote, to Say's arguments themselves.  After all,
the above fallacious reasoning is exactly what Keynes corrected
in the General Theory.

>In the section itself, Mill wrote of this analytical
>proposition to the effect that to grasp its meaning was
>to understand economics.

And then, since AFTER Mill the neoclassical theory developed
to the point that it could believe that maximising theory is
the sine qua none of understanding economics, it follows
directly, (since A held requisite for C by someone in the mid
1800's and B held requisite for C in the later 1900's is clear
evidence that B is the foundation for A) we can self evidently
jump from the explicit foundations to the implicit foundations
that every well indoctrinated neoclassical knows Say ought
to have had since he was aiming for a scientific approach to
economics!

I love that "C only if A, C only if B, therefore B implies
A" syllogism.  Why didn't the ancient greek logicians use
it?


Virtually,

Bruce McFarling, Shortland, NSW
ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx