Hi Billy, On Apr 20, 2010, at 1:52 PM, [email protected] wrote: > Ernie: > Well said, I agree with your formulation. But --not to disagree with YOUR > larger point-- > there is one other factor to consider. Still another assumption, namely, that > markets > work efficiently. Actually, while they sometimes do so, sometimes the idea is > a > bad joke. That is, markets are susceptible to all sorts of contingencies, > everything from powerful insiders who put their thumbs on the scales > to mob psychology and a variety of irrationalities. > > This being the case, while I do agree in principle with use of "the market" > ( or specific markets ), there has to be what we don't now have, ways > to judge the value of markets to do their job. Uhhh, how are we > gonna do that ? ? ?
Clearly, we need to embed market theory in something larger, so as to have something else against which to judge the market. Historically that was "the state", but I think the reality is that the nation-state per se is both too big and too small to be a -sufficient- manager of the market (though clearly it has a necessary role). The one interesting data point -- perhaps not the right solution, but a good first attempt -- is the Efficient Community Hypothesis: The Efficient Community Hypothesis - Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review A more robust solution, I suspect, would embed market theory in the general context of systems theory, so we have a uniform way of thinking about the social, political, and human aspects of economic decisions, not merely the financial and informational aspects. -- Ernie P. > > Billy > > =================================================== > > > > In a message dated 4/20/2010 1:25:23 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, > [email protected] writes: > Hi Billy, > > On Apr 20, 2010, at 1:01 PM, [email protected] wrote: > > And, here, not at all incidentally, is where libertarianism breaks down. > > There is a false assumption built into libertarian logic, which says that > > all choices > > are equally good. > > Not to disagree with your larger point, but I think the libertarian argument > is somewhat different. > > As I understand it, the Libertarian claim is that: > > "Not all choices are equally good, but bad personal choices will eventually > die out in the market, with a social cost lower than trying to prevent them > in the first place." > > The counter-argument is that some personal bad choices create more social > cost than they do individual cost, and thus it is in society's net interest > to prevent them. > > -- Ernie P. > _______________________________________________ > Centroids mailing list: [email protected] > http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com > Archives at > http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/ > > _______________________________________________ > Centroids mailing list: [email protected] > http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com > Archives at > http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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