Steve Kates wrote > ... Michael denies that the archaic term "glut" is in > any way related to what Keynes had in mind. > Again I must refer you to my book for the full > story ... The same holds, of course, for my own argument and for my own book. In my contribution to this list which Steve refers to in the above, I claimed that in the _General_Theory_ Keynes did not even implicitly refer to "glut" in the sense of overproduction. In my book (p.420) I elaborate: In other contexts Keynes _did_ refer to overproduction, namely in connection with his "buffer stocks" proposal of 1942 and in a prior publication of 1926 where he wrote (CW, vol.XIX, part2, p.549) : "... the commodity markets of the world are almost never able to carry any material surplus of stocks at a price anywhere near the estimated normal." The consequence is that in such a case the price drops below the gestation cost and unemployment results for the inputs which go into the production of the said goods. Keynes did treat such a case of "overproduction" in 1926. But in 1936 he not once refers to such cases. In the GT he defines "effective demand" in a way which expressly _excludes_ such overproduction. Therefore I maintain: it is wrong and misleading to relate the _GT_ to overproduction. Steve continues the above passage by invoking Keynes' praise for Robert Malthus. In this context he quotes that Keynes referred to "effective demand ... in my own sense." Keynes' "own sense" should be clear from what was said before in this list. In the _GT_ Keynes does _not_ refer to overproduction, never to "glut" but rather to entrepreneurs being _on_ their supply curve for a given level of effective demand. As far as I can see, Steve Kates does not deny this. His argument is rather: In the GT Keynes indeed never referred to "glut" - neither in word nor in substance. But Keynes did refer to Malthus, Malthus referred to glut, and therefore we should nowadays relate Keynes' GT to the "general glut" debate. I might be biased in my understanding of logic, but for me this logic does not hold. In any case, this type of argument seems to me to contribute little to conveying the specific type of analysis which is contained in the GT. Michael Ambrosi