Robert Scott Gassler wrote: > If you go back to the original Bergson > article (written under the > pseudonym Burke), you find the social welfare > function formulated in a way > that makes it virtually impossible to refute.
It has been my contention that a key assumption Bergson adopted from Barone make it not only possible, but necessary to refute. Here's how Barone dealt with the immensely important and tricky issue of the hours of labour: "It is convenient to suppose -- it is a simple book-keeping artifice, so to speak -- that each individual sells the services of all his capital and re-purchases afterwards the part he consumes directly. For example, A, for eight hours of work of a particular kind which he supplies, receives a certain remuneration at an hourly rate. It is a matter of indifference whether we enter A's receipts as the proceeds of eight hours' labour, or as the proceeds of twenty-four hours' labour less expenditure of sixteen hours consumed by leisure." Barone's "simple book-keeping artifice" of 1908 deftly does away with the power imbalance between worker and employer in setting the hours of work and ignores any differential in rates of pay that result from productivity loss accompanying fatigue and unrest. Remember Marx devoted a chapter a chapter in Capital exclusively to working time and much of his analysis hinged on it. Sir Sydney Chapman presented a marginalist theory of the hours of labour in 1909 that suggests that under competitive conditions the hours of work will usually exceed those that are optimal both from the standpoint of worker welfare and from output. The most egregious aspect of Barone's "simple book-keeping artifice" is that it blythely assumes there are no long term health or working capacity consequences from overwork or that overwork can't occur. This is one of those assumptions like there is no such thing as involuntary unemployment even when it is deliberate government policy to induce higher unemployment levels as a check against wage inflation. What is it exactly about Barone's simple book-keeping artifice that makes Bergson's social welfare function virtually impossible to refute? The Sandwichman ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
