The illusion of economics, with all its assumptions, is that this is being done. Done via the market which registers the effective demands on the one side and supply on the other. Supply a function of costs of production and demand a function of personal utility. These pressures lead to a price that clears the market and so on.
Alas its not so neat after all and once the assumptions are relaxed or are not attainable (as is the case in most situations) the outcome is much as you describe below. Instead of markets we have market power. The general case in most markets. "where the shape of shared social life is formed by the "cunning of the price mechanism which takes place behind the persons' backs" likw qw have in our "formal democracy" where the most important issues are excluded from political discussion and relegated to the hidden machanations of CxOs and Directors of corporate boards " arthur -----Original Message----- From: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2002 6:29 PM To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: FW: To survive or not to survive. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Economics is about the allocation of scarce resources among competing uses. [snip] This sounds to me like it could be the subject of serious fully linguistic conversation among the citizens of the polis, to decide among themselves the shape of their shared social life, rather than the content of an impoverished less-than-conversation between "buyers" and "sellers", with only one word in its language: "$", where the shape of shared social life is formed by the "cunning of the price mechanism which takes place behind the persons' backs" likw qw have in our "formal democracy" where the most important issues are excluded from political discussion and relegated to the hidden machanations of CxOs and Directors of corporate boards (as has been pointed out many times, some large "private" corporations are bigger than many "sovereign nations"). So "economics" could be a discipline which studied in a disciplined way the ways persons decide how to shape their shared social world, e.g., how and why some of them abnegate genuine responsibility and let the quasi-natural force of "The Invisible Hand" made the decisions instead. A secondary part of economics, of course, would be calculating the various alternatives that are available for the citizens of the polis to choosae among. For instance, the economists might determine that the citizens of the polid afford both an Anti Ballistic Missile shield and also have resources left over to preserve the books in their libraries, or even to protect themselves from terrorists in dinghies loaded with fertilizer-based explosives. \brad mccormick -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
