ABSTRACT
Economists have some ideas about consumption that do not agree with the ideas of other students of society. Sometimes the other students are correct. But sometimes the economists are.
For one thing the economists say-correctly-that the amount of consumption, C, is determined by production, P, down to the last penny. Since the world does not get manna from heaven or an outside Santa Claus, it must get along on what it gets. And there’s no way to not consume what we as a world produce, unless we throw it into the sea, or waste it on war. Call the idea “common sense” or “accounting” or the “circular fl ow”, but anyway C equals P.
