> On Jan 16, 2026, at 08:32, Jim Farmelant via groups.io > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > https://www.academia.edu/146044842/Coase_Metabolic_Rift_and_the_Limits_of_Institutional_Coordination
Thanks for posting that. I enjoyed reading the short paper and appreciate the ecosocialist dimension to your thoughts on Coase. Alyssa Battistoni considers Coase in her Free Gifts book. For those who have not read the book, it is for some reason free on the Internet (https://worldecology.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Alyssa-Battistoni-Free-Gifts_-Capitalism-and-the-Politics-of-Nature-2025-Princeton-University-Press-10.1515_9780691263489-libgen.li_.pdf - I don't understand their business model. Battistoni devotes a section starting on p 123 on Coase's selection of the term "social cost" over "externality" and wrote that "Pigou’s utilitarianism, he [Coase] argued, had led him to import a moral framework that informed his assessment of both the necessity and ends of state intervention. Pigou had imbued the positive science of economics with normative evaluation." I haven't read Coase, but he obviously thought that economics is a science. I think that economic orthodoxies follow political ones. Battistoni noted that opposition to state intervention animated much of his work, and he shared that with the "Chicago Boys," whose political proclivities were demonstrated by the pain they inflicted on Chile post-coup (https://libcom.org/article/chicago-boys-chile-economic-freedoms-awful-toll). Mark -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#40229): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40229 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/117300453/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
