Finally, this discussion appears to be winding down, thank goodness!
I'd like to thank Roger Sandilands for his references and Roy Davidson's
"correction" of his reading of my posts. However, I can't resist noting
that Roger still has a bit of misreading of my amazement at the errors
of analysis I said I'd found in Henry George's Progress and Poverty.
Let me reproduce my words (6/13/06):
"Indeed, the more I read of George's "Progress and Poverty," the more
faults I find in his work. I get the same incredulous feeling I got in
the summer of 1985 when I stumbled upon the fact that the reason J.M.
Keynes thought that he had found the missing link in classical
macroeconomics was that they didn't have a valid theory of interest.
And in attempting to prove that point in the first footnote to chapter
14 of the General Theory, it is quite clear that Keynes could not
recognize capital in the classical theory of interest as funds. He then
proceeded to declare Marshall['s] restatements of the classical theory
of interest as "nonsensical" and "absurd."
"Henry George does about the same thing in chapters 1 and 2 of his book.
I'm almost tempted to do for George what I've been trying to do for
Keynes in macroeconomics. Just as I felt in the case of Keynes, I can't
now believe that the fundamental sources of George's errors have not yet
been published. Besides, I doubt that there is much interest in
economics for explaining how George got it wrong. Just as George
correctly recognizes that the value of land increases as the need to use
it (demand) increases with industrial progress, I would need to know
that there is much demand for such an effort to take up documenting the
sources of George's errors. Perhaps Roger and Warren might help me in
that regard."
I don't think the above provide a strong basis for the kind of
"confidence" that Roger infers:
"James Ahiakpor takes Roy Davidson to task for a supposedly superficial
reading of James's posts. But James himself admits to not having known
of Henry George's substantial _The Science of Political Economy_ (first
ed., 1897). His superficial acquaintance with George hasn't held him
back from proclaiming, in an earlier post, his confidence that he could
do with him what he has already so notably done for the world with that
other confused soul, John Maynard Keynes: debunk him."
Now, one doesn't have to have read everything in a famous author's work
to find fault on any particular point, does one? Keynes's work had been
significantly examined by numerous scholars before me. That is why I
couldn't believe that his misinterpretation of capital in the classical
theory of interest could have been missed by them. After 6 months of
searching the literature, I wrote it up, and spent another three years
"fighting" with referees before it finally appeared in HOPE 1990. The
same thing applies to Keynes's misrepresentation of saving in the
classical theory of growth (Southern Economic Journal 1995), which some
folks still continue to teach as the "paradox of thrift." So is
Keynes's mistaken attribution of the full-employment assumption to the
classics (Southern Economic Journal 1997).
So, I don't think Henry George is beyond still being "debunked" on his
muddling of the concept of financial capital, the wages-fund, the
classical inverse wage-profit relation, or anything else one might find
to be inaccurate in his work. I doubt that George overcame these
deficiencies in his arguments in The Science of Political Economy. (Roy
reports that George didn't find any extant economic thought to have much
substance! I can well anticipate some Austrians now preparing to do
"battle" with George, if they also didn't know of his views about their
economic science.) If he did, and I hadn't checked that source before
submitting a piece on George, a referee would point it out. That's what
referees are there for, isn't it? In any case, I now know where else to
look, should I decide to work on "good old" George.
Again, thanks for the references from Roger and Roy.
James Ahiakpor
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