On 12/11/2012 6:12 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> The problem I find with people like Barkley and other "unrepentant" Keynesians is that they refuse to acknowledge the errors of Keynes's attributions
> to classical economics.


I'll leave it to Barkley to say whether he is an "unrepentant Keynesian",
but the problem with your list of Keynes's "errors of attribution" is that
they simply miss the point.  The GT is not an effort to lay out the nuances
of previous theories.  It is an effort to draw a clear contrast between a
crude but recognizable general approach to theory and policy
and Keynes's model of unemployment **equilibrium**.  You are free to
get annoyed with Keynes for employing such rhetorical devices, but
it is probably more fruitful to consider why he would do so.

Any approach to the history of thought that tries to insist that there
was nothing new and useful in the GT faces an enormous difficulty dealing with
the subsequent four score years of theoretical and empirical work.

Alan Isaac