A Rebuttal of James Ahiakpor’s Fallacies and Misrepresentations of Jean-Baptiste Say’s Writings and Thinking

James Ahiakpor argues that our “claim that Say changed his mind on his law of markets or outlets in the fifth and sixth editions [of the Treatise]…is misleading.” We disagree emphatically with Ahiakpor’s characterizations. His note is full of errors and misrepresentations. In order to correctly analyze and interpret what Say wrote and meant, one must i) analyze the totality of Say’s writings, ii) study carefully his publications in chronological order, and iii) take into account what Say wrote about his previous positions on key issues, none of which Ahiakpor has done. Ahiakpor’s note is nothing but a selective and biased account of the textual evidence