Rejoinder to James Ahiakpor's Reply to My Review of His Book : "Classical Macroeconomics"

Abstract

First, I want to say that I think that much of the material in Ahiakpor's (A's) book is well worth saying, because it makes one focus on much of the value of classical macro that has been forgotten or neglected in these modern times, especially in Principle's books, but also in more advanced writings. I especially liked the article, which fo cused on the idea that Keynes' falsely attributed the assumption of full employment to the classicalists. There is no question that this assump tion is not made everywhere and uniformly in the classical writings. This book and A's writings in general, as indicated by the book's contents, have focused on the general topic of emphasizing what is right about classical macro and what is wrong with macro directly after the Keynesian reformulation in the 1920s through 1950s, which has in general carried forth into modern undergraduate books. The general problem that I see is a matter of emphasis. A believes that the classical writers (including the Marshall's) have stated a system that is well-nigh complete, with almost all possible cases included that Key nes and his followers included later, but without any substantial im provement. In fact, this more modern group's so-called improvement of classical ideas was downright wrong in many cases or so confused the economic language, that the definition of such a basic concept as 'capital' was hopelessly misinterpreted and has continued so. I believe that for the period (1770S-1870S), classical macro was a brilliant invention that continues to be a fruitful way to look at the world, but since that world has become so much more complicated, especially the monetary system, it serves no useful purpose to con tinue to dwell on the letter of these ideas; their spirit seems enough. So, attempting to defend literally the classical interpretation of basic macro concepts may be regarded as 'reactionary', and no economist should wish to be accused of this. It is fine to reinterpret the classical ideas and this is what the best part of A's book does well, but to insist