On Mon, August 10, 1998 at 09:11:19 (-0700) [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >... >Now, maybe Bhoddi is saying something deeper that I realize. To say, let >them eat cake [drink coke] because it tastes good sounds to me to be >something like saying let the multinationals determine our relations with >the rest of the world. > >Have I missed something? I think Doug makes a mistake of too easily letting the tobacco companies off the hook for helping to shape preferences for smoking. Just as multinationals can "determine our relations with the rest of the [human] world", so can they with respect to material things. I'd like to think that in a democratic society, we might shape our economic system so that it provided goods for people who had not had their consent manufactured, who were not victims of the science of coercion. Robin Hahnel has done some good work in the area of endogenous preference formation; and as Doug knows, Tversky et al have also done some very good work showing systematic "errors" in evaluating information that can be used to funnel preferences in (non-democratic) ways. I do like Coke, I eat McDonald's too (Doug is wrong [so is Cockburn] --- I've had a smoke and they are disgusting). But, I'm also keenly aware that the beef that McDonald's buys is heavily subsidized by the state, their advertising is tax-deductible, that there is such a thing as health problems associated with the vast quantities of cheap fatty and sugary foods (my wife and I just visited with a pediatrician who is convinced that American childrens' diets are behind the rash of "ADHD" cases). One thing to keep in mind: to assert that preferences are endogenous is not akin to passing judgment on whether or not "Coke is good", hence committing the cardinal sin which the "bourgeois individualism" of neoclassical welfare theory is so careful not to commit. In other words, I think the argument is misplaced --- let's argue about endogenous preference formation and how it leads the market to (among other things) provide too much of goods with negative externalities, too little "public" goods, and (perhaps) too much grease, sugar, and tobacco. Bill
