Fred Lee said:
>
The responses to Gary Mongiovi argument regarding supply and demand are
interesting.  It appears that the objective of Professor Ahiakpor and
others is to establish the claim that Ricardo and other classical
economists were really supply and demand theorists like Marshall and
most 20th century economists.  So it would seem that no other
theoretical approach ever existed in economics other than supply and
demand.  The outcome of this position is to deny legitimacy to Marxists,
Sraffians, and other heterodox economists who argue that their
theoretical approaches can be traced back to the classical economists.
So without such a legitimate past, the implied conclusion is that these
approaches were never and are not now part of economics. Of course this
implies that individuals who are partial to these approaches are not
part of the community of economists.  An interesting conclusion indeed.
>



I don't see my response as saying anything of the sort. I argued that
Classicals knew of supply and demand, but chose to put the emphasis
slightly differently--much more on costs and supply considerations. I
would fit Marxists and Straffians in that same Classical framework--they
know about demand but choose to put their emphasis elsewhere--I think it
was Joan Robinson, who said that neoclassicals change the focus from big
questions to "price of eggs" questions. So Fred's conclusion is
certainly not the conclusion I would draw for the discussion. 


David Colander