This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--part0_914277192_boundary
Interesting argument below. However, I would prefer not to repeat one
neoclassical fiction (market rewards individuals according to their relative
marginal contributions to social product) in the course of exploring others.
Also, embargoes such as those against Cuba and Iraq suggest that some
operating "in the market" do indeed will and desire--for others--starvation
ass an instrument of imperial policy and control.
But your example is indeed intriguing.
Jim Craven
--part0_914277192_boundary
Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
by rly-yc04.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0)
Mon, 21 Dec 1998 14:49:55 -0500 (EST)
Mon, 21 Dec 1998 11:50:41 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <l03130314b2a42c73eeab@[137.92.41.119]>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 11:11:21 -0800
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Brad De Long <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:1792] Redutio ad Absurdum
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>"I do a little number in my Micro classes called "Pareto Optimality at
>Auschwitz" ... "
>
>Way back, I changed degrees half a semester into an education/economics
>degree. Those who purported to teach how to teach couldn't teach, and
>those who purported to explain human behaviour weren't talking about
>anybody I knew - well, not then, anyway.
>
>Maybe I wasn't as lucky with my teachers as your students so obviously are.
>
>Maybe too many of us weren't.
>
>All the best,
>Rob.
I think famines work better--they make the point that if your labor-time
endowment has no value, then your utility has no weight in the social
welfare function that the market maximizes, and so you starve to death: the
market's equilibrium weighs each person's preferences roughly by the market
value of his/her endowment.
I think famines work better because starvation is not a willed and desired
objective of anyone in the market--while mass death certainly was a willed
and desired objective of those who ran the show during the "final
solution." "Final solution" examples leave people thinking, "yes, this
market-as-a-social-allocation-mechanism does indeed efficiently produce the
goals that society has chosen." Famine examples--I think, at least--probe a
little bit deeper because the market also plays a powerful role in
"choosing" "society's" "goals."
Brad DeLong
--part0_914277192_boundary--
