Last week, I withdraw a post following our moderator's advice not to  
enter a spiral about Say's Law but as Steve posted again his  
translation of FH's words, I cannot help to disagree with his  
translation of the heavily discussed sentence "l'offre créé même la  
demande" - supply creates actually demand.
In my view, FH who has taught economics at Sciences Po is well aware  
of Keynes' formulation of Say's Law and he actually meant something  
else (besides he is certainly aware that the Say's law is anathema to  
most economists supporting his party). Therefore I would rather propose
something like "[we could] even [say that] supply [somehow] creates
demand". The word "même" can be used in two meanings, the first one in  
order to reinforce the assertion (= as ipse in latin (or actually in  
English", the second one to mark a limit, or an extension (= etiam in  
latin).
I'm sure that FH would enjoyed to read Steve's post.. but I'm afraid  
he has no time left currently to select the best translation.
Steve Kates <[log in to unmask]> a écrit :

> There are a number of facts that are relevant in any discussion of Say's
> Law which I thought I might set out. What I find something of a problem is
> the common assumption that Say's Law refers to something that was believed
> during the early parts of the nineteenth century and was of little
> significance thereafter. No discussion ever seems to get past Malthus, Say
> and Mill in looking at what was an embedded principle right up until 1936.
>
>
>
> The first thing that might be noted is that the term "Say's Law" is not
> classical in origin but was consciously invented by Fred Manville Taylor
> and introduced into general economic discourse with the publication of
> his *Principles
> of Economics* text in 1921. Before Taylor no one called this association of
> demand with previous supply "Say's Law". Taylor introduced the term because
> he thought economic theory needed to identify one of its most important
> underlying principles. The ironies of what followed next are too obvious
> for comment.
>
>
>
> This continuous fixation on the early classical economists has had a number
> of unfortunate consequences. The first is that economists are always
> returning to Say as if he provided the definitive statement on Say's Law.
> He did not. If you want the point of origin, it is in James Mill in
> his *Commerce
> Defended* published in 1807. Here is the passage that matters, although the
> whole of his discussion is well worth the effort:
>
>
>
> "No proposition however in political economy seems to be more certain than
> this which I am going to announce, how paradoxical soever it may at first
> sight appear; and if it be true, none undoubtedly can be deemed of more
> importance. The production of commodities creates, and is the one and
> universal cause which creates a market for the commodities produced."
>
>
>
> The final sentence should be familiar but is not the actual origins of the
> specific words used by Keynes.
>
>
>
> It is also important to appreciate James Mill's role since I see his
> statement not only as exactly right, but he wrote his book in response to
> an argument in which too much saving and too little demand were seen as the
> causes of recession. This was the first instance in which an argument that
> economies are driven by demand was rejected. Mill was saying an economy
> could not be stimulated from the demand side. That was the point of Say's
> Law, and still is.
>
>
>
> This nameless principle was universally accepted by the mainstream. But if
> you would like to find Say's Law as clearly stated as it is possible to
> find it in the classical literature, this is David Ricardo writing to
> Malthus just after the commencement of the General Glut debate in 1820.
> Malthus said the post-Napoleonic recessions had been caused by too much
> saving and too little demand. To this, Ricardo replied:
>
>
>
> "Men err in their productions, there is no deficiency of demand."
>
>
>
> That's it. Say's Law. Recessions are caused by mis-directed production, not
> deficient demand. This was the foundation for the entire theory of the
> cycle that would develop over the following century. It is the
> disappearance of the theory of the cycle that may be the greatest loss
> economists have experienced because of the *General Theory*.
>
>
>
> There is then this. At the end of the General Glut debate in 1848, John
> Stuart Mill published his *Principles of Political Economy*, which included
> his fourth proposition on capital. This may be the most enigmatic statement
> ever made by a great economist, but if you want to see the principle behind
> Say's Law, whether you agree with it or not, this is what Mill wrote:
>
>
>
> "Demand for commodities is not demand for labour."
>
>
>
> Or as we might put it today, an economic stimulus will not create jobs.
> This is a statement whose reasoning is perfectly clear to me. I teach it to
> my students and it is in my text and few ever have any trouble with it.
> Described in 1876 as "the best test of a sound economist", in my view it
> still is. It was a conclusion that policy makers accepted right through
> until the 1930s and perhaps even for a while after. But it was an enduring
> concept.
>
>
>
> So I take you back to Francois Hollande. What he said in French was this:
>
>
>
> "*Le temps est venu de régler le principal problème de la France : sa
> production. Oui, je dis bien sa production. Il nous faut produire plus, il
> nous faut produire mieux. C'est donc sur l'offre qu'il faut agir. Sur
> l'offre ! Ce n'est pas contradictoire avec la demande. L'offre crée même la
> demande.*"
>
>
>
> This is the whole thing in my free translation:
>
>
>
> "The time has come to work through the number one problem in France: which
> is production. Yes, that's what I said, production. We must produce more,
> we must produce better. Hence, it is upon supply that we must concentrate.
> On supply! This is not in opposition to demand. *Supply actually creates
> demand*."
>
>
>
> It is true the point Hollande makes takes you back to J.-B. Say, David
> Ricardo and James and John Stuart Mill, all of whom are, of course,
> classical. But he also takes you back to Fred Taylor whose book was
> published only a few years before the *General Theory*, where he was trying
> to state what every economist of his own generation knew and accepted.
> Today, so far as aggregate demand goes, we are all Keynesians now, with
> some very few exceptions.
>
>
>
> And while we're at it, you might also ask yourself how Taylor's very much
> twentieth century phrase ended up in *The General Theory*. The standard
> story of the trek from the *Treatise* to the *General Theory* has a lot of
> gaps, even after the hundred million words that have been devoted to
> explaining what the *General Theory* means and how it came to be written.
>
>
> On 25 January 2014 15:08, Steve Kates <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> This only came to my attention a few days ago but apparently François
>> Hollande, the President of France, quoted what he believed to have been the
>> actual words J.-B. Say used to describe the meaning of what we today refer
>> to as Say's Law: *L'offre crée même la demande*. He quoted it because he
>> intends to use this maxim as a guide to policy in directing the French
>> economy. Here is the quotation, in French:
>>
>>
>>
>> Le temps est venu de régler le principal problème de la France : sa
>> production. Oui, je dis bien sa production. Il nous faut produire plus, il
>> nous faut produire mieux. C'est donc sur l'offre qu'il faut agir. Sur
>> l'offre ! Ce n'est pas contradictoire avec la demande. *L'offre crée même
>> la demande*.
>>
>> *François Hollande - January 14, 2014 [My bolding]*
>>
>>
>>
>> This only came to my attention because of an article reprinted from *The
>> Financial Times* dated 19 January and written by one of the FT's
>> columnists, Wolfgang Münchau.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0a469808-7f6e-11e3-b6a700144feabdc0.html#axzz2r08HdayQ
>>
>>
>>
>> This was the relevant para:
>>
>>
>>
>> "Last week, we heard another Frenchman, President François Hollande,
>> proclaiming: '*L'offre crée même la demande*', which translates as
>> 'supply actually creates its own demand'. If you want to look for the real
>> political scandal in France today, it is not the sight of the president in
>> a motorcycle helmet about to sneak into a Parisian apartment building. It
>> is that official economic thinking in Paris has not progressed in 211
>> years."
>>
>>
>>
>> This is significant to me for two reasons which I have discussed in past
>> threads on this site, not to mention in my *Defending the History of
>> Economic Thought*. First, economic ideas of the past are never
>> transcended in the sense that once something better has been devised, older
>> ways of looking at things never come back. As we can see here, older ideas
>> retain a life of their own and may, in the right circumstances, turn out to
>> be relevant in understanding contemporary events. With the now generally
>> recognised failure of the Keynesian stimulus packages, the question has
>> become, what should be done now?
>>
>>
>>
>> There can be no doubt that the Socialist President of France, who more
>> than anything else would have liked to have spent the French economy into
>> recovery, but having personally experienced the consequences of trying to
>> use Keynesian economic policies, has concluded that economies are not
>> driven by a public sector stimulus. Hollande is therefore looking in
>> another direction and has embraced Say's Law as best he understands it.
>>
>>
>>
>> You may be sure Hollande did not do this lightly. This awareness has come
>> as the result of the bitter fruits of experience. The stimulus packages of
>> 2009 are today's debt and dying economies.
>>
>>
>>
>> Which brings me to my second issue which is also something I have
>> discussed on this website. The classical economists may well have been
>> right that there will be no recovery until demand is again constituted by
>> actual value adding supply. And what is interesting is that Hollande, far
>> from leading the way in his approach to economic theory, is following in
>> the footsteps of others who are trying to achieve a turnaround in their
>> economies. This is again from the article in *The Financial Times*:
>>
>>
>>
>> "The third significance lies in the fact that the new consensus spans the
>> entire mainstream political spectrum. If you live on the European continent
>> and if you have a problem with Say's Law, the only political parties that
>> cater to you are the extreme left or the extreme right."
>>
>>
>>
>> Economic policy everywhere is, according to this article, guided by Say's
>> Law. I don't actually believe that is literally true, but the problem
>> remains that while policy makers are trying to walk away from Keynes there
>> are no longer any guideposts on what to do since almost no economics text
>> will explain the actual meaning of Say's Law, the classical theory of the
>> cycle and what needs to be done to generate a recovery when the economy is
>> in recession.
>>
>>
>>
>> History of economic thought has its uses as economics. It is not the
>> history and philosophy of science, it is not the discarded ideas of Dead
>> White Males. It is part of the collective wisdom of economists that we, as
>> historians of economic thought, do our best to keep alive.
>> --
>>
>> Dr Steven Kates
>> Associate Professor
>> School of Economics, Finance
>>    and Marketing
>> RMIT University
>> Building 80
>> Level 11 / 445 Swanston Street
>> Melbourne Vic 3000
>>
>> Phone: (03) 9925 5878
>> Mobile: 042 7297 529
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Dr Steven Kates
> Associate Professor
> School of Economics, Finance
>    and Marketing
> RMIT University
> Building 80
> Level 11 / 445 Swanston Street
> Melbourne Vic 3000
>
> Phone: (03) 9925 5878
> Mobile: 042 7297 529