Steve Kates wrote 
> ... Michael denies that the archaic term "glut" is in
> any way related to what Keynes had in mind.
>  Again I must refer you to my book for the full
> story ...


The same holds, of course, for my own argument and for my own book. In my
contribution to this list which Steve refers to in the above,  I claimed
that in the _General_Theory_  Keynes did not even implicitly refer to "glut"
in the sense of overproduction. In my book (p.420) I elaborate: In other
contexts Keynes _did_ refer to overproduction, namely in connection with his
"buffer stocks" proposal of 1942 and in a prior publication of 1926 where he
wrote (CW, vol.XIX, part2, p.549) : "... the commodity markets of the world
are almost never able to carry any material surplus of stocks at a price
anywhere near the estimated normal." The consequence is that in such a case
the price drops below the gestation cost and unemployment results for the
inputs which go into the production of the said goods. Keynes did  treat
such a case of "overproduction" in 1926. But in 1936 he not once refers to
such cases.  In the GT he defines "effective demand" in a way which
expressly _excludes_ such overproduction. Therefore  I maintain: it is
wrong and misleading to relate the _GT_ to overproduction.
Steve continues the above passage by invoking Keynes' praise for Robert
Malthus. In this context he quotes that Keynes referred to "effective demand
... in my own sense." Keynes' "own sense" should be clear from what was said
before in this list. In the _GT_ Keynes does _not_ refer to overproduction,
never to "glut" but rather to entrepreneurs being _on_ their supply curve
for a given level of effective demand. 

As far as I can see, Steve Kates does not deny this.  His argument is
rather: In the GT Keynes indeed never referred to "glut" - neither in word
nor in substance. But Keynes did refer to Malthus, Malthus referred to glut,
and therefore we should nowadays relate Keynes' GT to the "general glut"
debate. I might be biased in my understanding of logic, but for me this
logic does not hold. In any case, this type of argument seems to me to
contribute little to conveying the specific type of analysis which is
contained in the GT. 

Michael Ambrosi