ABSTRACT
The consumption function first appeared in Keynes's General Theory as an element in the determination of aggregate demand. While, clearly, such a function would have served no purpose in an approach which had retained Say's law, in which there is no place for an autonomous determination of aggregate demand, it is, nevertheless, only recently that the conceptual relationship between this function and the neoclassical demand functions has been made explicit. This reconciliation is forced upon us, once we abandon a strictly aggregative perspective by undertaking even a minimal breakdown of household consumption, albeit simply into durable and non-durable goods.
