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A Rehabilitation of Say’s Law
Title Page
W. H. HUTT
A Rehabilitation
of Say’s Law
OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS: ATHENS
Copyright Page
Copyright© 1974 by W. H. Hutt
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 74-82499
ISBN-0-8214-0164-5
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America by
Oberlin Printing, Inc.
Design by Hal Stevens.
Preface
Preface
I. Introduction
In his 1970 Richard Ely Lecture, Harry G. Johnson, without defending Keynesian doctrine, justifies Keynes’ assault of 1936 (in The General Theory) on the prevailing economic orthodoxy, on the grounds that its “principles and slogans” (which, by implication, are apparently assumed to have activated policy before 1936) “. . . could neither explain nor cope with” the great depression.
II. Definitions (with some Explanations)
Production. The creation of value (Say’s definition). More rigorously, (a) as a process, provision of the flow of productive services by men or assets (natural resources being included under “assets”); and (b) as a magnitude, the “real” value of that flow.
III. Say’s Law Restated
I propose now to attempt a re-exposition of Say’s law, as I understand it, and then to deal briefly and broadly with the principal objections which were advanced against it prior to 1960. Following that, I shall discuss some more recent and more subtle arguments which may appear to question its validity or relevance.
IV. Further Objections to Say’s Law
V. The Concept of Withholding
Some critical readers may still be unhappy about the concept of “with-holding supplies.” Given my insistence that a producer’s decision to accumulate part of the output of his efforts and assets (or perhaps the whole of his output) is “actual demand” by him for that output, as well as its “actual supply,” how can such “actual supplies” be clearly distinguished from “withheld supplies”? If inventories may pile up without “withholding,” how can we recognize the circumstances in which “withholding” does occur?
