I wrote: "I suspect that Rosser hasn't bothered to read Keynes's 1923 
book, 'a Tract on Monetary Reform,' particularly page 88, in order to 
appreciate that what he conceived of as the long run in which we are all 
dead was mistaken.  (I first made that point in 'On Keynes's 
Misinterpretation of 'Capital' in the Classical Theory of Interest,' 
HOPE 1990.  I'm well aware that few pay any attention to that article.)"

Barkley Rosser responds with:
"a)  I have read Keynes's 1923 tract.
  b)  I read your 1990 paper when it first came out and am no more 
impressed with its arguments today than I was then, although
you keep repeating them here."

Now Rosser doesn't confirm that I'm correct in arguing that Keynes was 
wrong in criticizing classical monetary theory with his misleading quip, 
"In the long run we are all dead."  I here reproduce from the Tract, 
chapter 3, section 1 (The Quantity Theory of Money):

"... the Theory has often been expounded on the ... assumption that a 
*mere* change in the quantity of the currency cannot affect k, r, and 
k', -- that is to say, in mathematical parlance, that n is an 
*independent variable* in relation to these quantities.  It would follow 
from this that an arbitrary doubling of n, since this in itself is 
assumed not to affect k, r, and k', must have the effect of raising p to 
double what it would have been otherwise.  The Quantity Theory is often 
stated in this, or similar, form.

"Now 'in the long run' this is probably true.  If, after the American 
Civil War, the American dollar had been stabilised and defined by law at 
10 per cent below its present value, it would be safe to assume that n 
and p would now be just 10 per cent greater than they actually are and 
that the present values of k, r, and k' would be entirely unaffected. 
But this *long run* is a misleading guide to current affairs [i.e. the 
short run].  *In the long run* we are all dead.  Economists set 
themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they 
can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat 
again" (Reprinted, 1932 , p. 80; emphasis original).  (Keynes here 
defines n = currency, k = public's cash balances or "consumption units 
in cash", k' = checkable deposits, and r = the "proportion ... of their 
potential liabilities (k') to the public" that banks keep in cash (p. 77).

Is there any doubt that Keynes was talking about the Quantity Theory of 
Money when he made his famous quip?  Is it correct to claim, as Keynes 
does, that classical economists did not address the operation of that 
theory in the short run?  What about Marshall (1887, 1920, and 1923) or 
Irving Fisher (1912 and 1913)?  And then in the General Theory,  Keynes 
talks about how the analysis he presents "registers [his] final escape 
from the confusions of the Quantity Theory, which once entangled [him]" 
(xxxiv), a struggle that was in the nature of "some one brought up a 
Catholic in English economics, a priest of that faith," becoming "a 
Protestant" (xxv).

I think it is legitimate to ask, How well does Rosser understand what he 
read from the Tract, when he doesn't affirm my previous paraphrasing of 
Keynes's argument or my statement of its context?

My 1990 criticism of Keynes's argument is in footnote 52, pp. 524-5, 
where I also note that "Surely, within the monetary long run, there are 
more people alive than dead!  Thus, had Keynes not believed that the 
supply and demand for 'capital' determine the price of capital goods, 
not the rate of interest, he could have recognized the complementarity 
between the classical quantity theory of money and the 'capital' 
demand-and-supply theory of interest, which exists" (p. 525).

Rosser also says he was not before nor even now impressed with my 
arguments in the 1990 article, but offers a quote, which reflects 
someone's confusion over the concept of capital, and which he correctly 
suspects I haven't read:

"What really is capital and what does it mean for value, growth, and 
distribution?  Is it a pile of produced means of production?  It is it 
dated labor?  Is it waiting?  Is it roundaboutness?  Is it an 
accumulated pile of finance?  Is it a social relation?  Is it an 
independent source of value?  The answers to these questions are 
probably matters of belief."

Had Rosser read my 1990 article with any care, he would have noticed 
that the above quote is similar to J.R. Hicks's (1936, 1946) view on the 
interpretation we give to "capital" in discussing the classical theory 
of interest, which I cite on p. 507: "'it makes a great deal of 
difference which interpretation' we put on 'capital': ' 'real capital' ' 
in the sense of concrete goods ... or 'money capital.'  This division of 
opinion is serious; it is a real dispute, in which one side must be 
right and the other wrong.' "  I then go on to explain that the classics 
used the fund concept, taking quotations from Smith, Ricardo, and J.S. 
Mill, as well as from Marshall, Clark, Pigou, and Knight.

So I think it's Rosser's loss not to have read the article with care to 
have benefited from it.  Naturally, I value much more the opinions of 
the referees who handled my manuscript, one of whom wrote:

"This is an excellent paper which I read with very considerable 
enjoyment.  It is an excellent counter to the absurd tradition, 
endlessly reiterated by writers like Joan Robinson, that Marshall had no 
theory of interest.  Keynes's disgraceful misrepresentation of Marshall 
-- when in truth much of Keynes's own treatment of money comes from 
Marshall -- is the source for this.  In a sense it is sad that this 
paper should be necessary at all but people will continue to take Keynes 
at his word."  And yes, people, like Rosser continue to take Keynes at 
his word, nevertheless.

Rosser also claims that "Basically Darity and Young pretty much took you 
[Ahiakpor] apart."  Boy, did I miss the show.  Pray, tell where Darity 
and Young took my 1990 arguments apart?  I doubt that they did, and I'll 
write Rosser a check for $20 just for revealing it (finder's fee)!

Rosser finally takes pot shots at Steven Kates for my having referred to 
his edited book.  That's quite unfortunate.  The book is a collection of 
essays from different authors, including William Baumol, Evelyn Forget, 
Steven Horwitz, and myself (chapter 7), besides Kates's own.  I stand 
most firmly on my own criticism of Keynes's misrepresentation of Say's 
law in the book as well as in "Full Employment: A classical Assumption 
or Keynes's Rhetorical Device?" (Southern Economic Journal, July 1997) 
and "On the Mythology of the Keynesian Multiplier" (American Journal of 
Economics and Sociology, 2001).

The "controversy" over the authorship of Hayek's comments on Keynes is 
being resolved, I think, in Kates's favor.  But Rosser shouldn't forget 
that he recently attributed statements to Bruce Caldwell which Bruce 
later denied having made.  Bruce also subsequently asked Rosser to stop 
making statements on his behalf!  People in glass houses shouldn't be 
throwing stones, the adage says, doesn't it?

James Ahiakpor