Brief Outline of Topics Covered in Lecture 9:
- The Classical School - Bentham, Say, Senior, and Mill (ch. 6) [cont.]
Jean-Baptiste Say (1767 – 1832)
Nassau William Senior (1790 - 1864)
Additional Reading
This was posted once before in the section on Malthus:
Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832) on Say's Law and the Impossibility of Gluts
"It is worth while to remark, that a product is no sooner created, than it, from that instance, affords a market for other products to the full extent of its own value. When the producer has put the finishing hand to his product, he is most anxious to sell it immediately, lest its value should vanish in his hands. Nor is he less anxious to dispose of the money he may get for it; for the value of money is also perishable. But the only way of getting rid of money is in the purchase of some product or other. Thus, the mere circumstance of the creation of one product immediately opens a vent for other products ..."
"But it may be asked, if this be so, how does it happen, that there is at times so great a glut of commodities in the market and so much difficulty in finding a vent for them? Why cannot one of these 11 superabundant commodities be exchanged for another? I answer that the glut of a particular commodity arises from its having outrun the total demand for it in one or two ways; either because it has been produced in excessive abundance, or because the production of other commodities has fallen short."
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