----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Steve Kates (and others) have provided lots of neat information on Say's Law. He suggested in his post that until 1936 mainstream economists argued that supply could not outrun demand (and so 'overproduction' was impossible). My question (I am a historian of political philosophy, not an economist!) is, why and how could they argue that overproduction was impossible? Or, perhaps to be more explicit about what is in my mind, both Hegel in the Philosophy of Right (1821), after citing Smith, Ricardo, and Say, and Marx from the Communist Manifesto onwards, thought it was clear that supply could and did outrun demand. (I would also think it would be clear to any observer of economic recessions and depressions from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the present that supply could outrun demand.) So, basing my thoughts on Hegel, Marx, and simple (simplistic?) observation (using perceptions formed, perhaps, by reading the Grapes of Wrath at an impressionable age), I have always been suspicious of Say's Law, thinking it a piece of economic science that (to use Marxist language) shows how ideological some dimensions of mainstream economics is. Peter G. Stillman ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]