----- Original Message ----- From: "Sabri Oncu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > The whole history of the Grateful Dead, > > not to mention the huge IT project my beloved, > > Lisa, is involved with is a big set of > > counterfactuals that makes the above seem too > > simplistic..... > > > > Ian > > Of course it is was overly simplistic, as it was meant to be. It > was just an abstraction based on my personal real life > experiences. Reality, as I experienced it, is infinitely more > complicated. ================= Sabri, apologies if I came across as terse in any way. I was simply trying to provide equally simplistic counterexamples which would explode a parable that's a staple of neoclassical price theory and information economics. Rob Schaap's observation on Richard Dawkins and the information content of a pair of trousers is very apropos as regards the topic at hand. If there's to be a genuine search for an alternative parable, where's the analysis of the relationships between information-knowledge-power and budgets? It would seem an alternative micro would be hobbled without a better theory of the firm. This would seem to imply the need to mix together the type of work done by Barbara Ehrenreich with the stuff done by Studs Terekel, Michael Burawoy, Harry Braverman, Louis Putterman --the list could go on-- and use those insights to look at software firms, air traffic control systems, trucking companies, hospitals, hardware stores etc.. The strategy would not only deal with the inadequacies of the current mythologies, but confront head on the drivel promulgated by the people who gave us "Reengineering the Corporation" and other such pieces of drivel. Then we could address the the issue of what kinds of norms are needed to address the problems inherent in using such concept pairs as 'asymmetric information' 'principal-agent' etc. that avoid dealing with the issues of power and domination. The 'point' would not be to make a fetish of power, but help students-workers-citizens think about those issues so that the desire to 'have' or 'exercise' power and domination within the institutions of production etc. are attenuated [leaving aside the issue as to whether they could ever be eliminated]. > But if the theory fails so miserably in such a > simple, but not necessarily unrealistic, situation, do we need to > test it against real life? ============= Nay, replace it; as others have been saying in discussing how to teach alternative stories. >By the way, among the implications of > this is that perfect competition is not that "ideal" after all, > of course, according to the neoclassical theory. =============== Perfect is one of the most abused, if not useless, terms in any language. > Pass my feelings of solidarity to Lisa please. > > Best, > > Sabri ============= Will do and solidarity to you and, what the heck, solidarity to all on the list.............. Ian
