Gil Skillman writes: >> So if capitalists *can* sometimes contract directly for the labor services >> they seek, why do they typically not do this, opting instead for the more >> indirect and costly route of purchasing simply labor power, and then >> overseeing its exercise in the context of capitalist production? I >> suggested that in those cases contractual incompleteness was a sufficient >> hindrance to preclude using simple contractual means to attain the desired >> labor outcomes. A corollary of this observation is that, hypothetically, >> if there were no contracting difficulties, purchasing labor power and >> subsuming it in capitalist-controlled production would be >> unnecessary. However, obviously, it's not necessary assume that there are >> no contracting frictions in the empirical cases where capitalists do >> contract for labor services or make loans at interest to value producers.
Is not the question answered by Coase's theory of the firm, or is Coase answering a different question? David Shemano
