of overcoming the deficit. While Say's Law supposedly dealt with this problem, successive economists came up with new scenarios which could throw an economy out of general equilibrium, or require expansion through conquest, which became termed imperialism. The nature of the general glut In Classical Economics, the chief economic concern of all economists according to Thomas Sowell (On Classical Economics, 2006, pp. 22) was how to generate and sustain stable economic growth on a national level. Each factory-producer's basic concern is of maximizing return on investment through sales. Yet, concern was also expressed that savings (and not spending money by the wealthy classes) or production of the wrong items contrary to market demand would produce a nationwide economic glut (a.k.a. recession/depression) because of the un-purchased (unconsumed) products which result in unemployment, idle factories, low national output, and wealth fleeting from the nation. Some theorized that a general glut is then (in the basic case over time) avoidable and not inevitable. Say's Law says, Since "savings equals investment" in a bank or other wise, money is always spent and ultimately reinvested into more or newer production activities which generates demand (both for the production resources and the items produced). Say's Law: Since "demand is always present," then, "production generates its own demand." Then if a glut exists, producers must react to market demand liquidating glut items and produce the items the market desires. Demand will return and any remaining glut will then be distributed by the market. A company/country only needs to keep producing, or produce more wisely, or respond to market conditions with products that meet consumer's demands to avoid a (national recession/depression) glut. Say's law According to French economist Jean-Baptiste Say, the concentration of wealth into resources dedicated to savings and re-investment simply adds to the ability of consumption to consume more. And so, he states, there can be no general glut because investment in "production creates its own demand." A producer/country only need liquidate the glut items and redirect its production activities to items the market demands to eliminate the glut and prosperity will return. Malthus's solution Thomas Malthus proposed that a glut of production localised in time rather than by industry or field of production would meet the requirement of Say's Law that general gluts cannot exist and yet would constitute just such a general glut. The consequences then are worked out by Malthus, although Simond de