Bad Advice A Comment

Bad Advice: A Comment T N Srinivasan IN a rather pompc article, Kaushik Basu (EPW, March 7-14, 1992) uses a paragraph from my comments (Srinivasan, 1989) on a paper of his (Basu, 1989) to illustrate "in a short space several fallacies". These fallacies and confusions arise, in Basu's view, from my "inability to grasp fully the meaning of 'endogenous government'". He helpfully suggests that "A useful reference for avoiding errors (such as mine) is Bhagwati (1988)" ! am very pleased indeed to have provided such a valuable pedagogical tool. But I would also venture to suggest that most readers of my comment (Srinivasan, 1989) in its entirety would agree that, perhaps, I am a little less confused and prone to fallacious reasoning than Basu would give me credit for, from his Olympian heights of logical clarity and scholarship.