On Sun, Dec 28, 2025 at 12:06 AM, Tom Walker wrote: > > The problem I see is not so much with Coase's argument as with its > reception. According to a survey of textbooks, 80% reproduce that Stigler > Theorem caricature of Coase that has been so influential in neoclassical > policy arguments.
As I said before, a lot of mainstream economists did like some of Coase's ideas but they either didn't understand the framework from which he was operating from , which was anti-formalist and historically grounded or they willfully ignored it. His zero–transaction-cost world was introduced as a thought experiment —a diagnostic device to show how standard welfare conclusions depend on ignoring the costs of using markets, law, and organizations. He frequently reiterated his claim that such a world does not exist and cannot exist. For him, policy analysis must instead focus on comparative institutional arrangements under positive transaction costs. By contrast, what Stigler called “the Coase Theorem” converted this diagnostic exercise into a universal efficiency claim: that markets will internalize externalities regardless of legal rules, provided property rights are well defined. That move stripped Coase’s argument of its critical edge and made it usable as a defense of laissez-faire policy. As I said before, Coase did move rightwards away from his youthful socialism. The older Coase saw himself as a critic of economists who, in his view, ignored the real institutional costs of both markets and states. He was a conservative without being a fanatical libertarian. And you're correct that much of the reception of Marx's work by both critics and many professed admirers is based on similar distortions of his work. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39905): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39905 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116961607/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
