>What Blair described is the ocassional human contract that manages to
>seep into market society. Such events are so extraordinary that they
>need to be singled out for comment.
>
>I am off to Walmart ....
>
>Michael Perelman
Michael, was that "human *contract*" or "human *contact*?"
Serious question: if the former I don't understand. Assuming the latter,
then I think perhaps what you mean is it's not the market at all that I'm
saying "can be fun." Back in the old days, before there were natural food
stores and it was impossible (at least in New Haven) to get decent food
from the supermarket, I was a member of a moderate size (60-75 people) food
buying club. Once a month we'd have these huge get-togethers, pot-luck
dinners, the work of divvying up the food, and afterwards we'd talk
politics, make music, etc. These were not only productive (transforming
bulk, wholesale goods into small quantities of goods suitable for
individual (mostly but by no means entirely communal) households, but also
much fun, restorative human contact, and so on. So here's a way of
distributing goods and services (the ostensible purpose of markets) without
the markets and with all the fun of the kind of market I described in my
earlier post. Is this basically what you're suggesting, Michael?
Blair
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Blair Sandler
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"It is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one
thinks too long alone, particularly in economics...."
-- J. M. Keynes, the Preface to the GENERAL THEORY
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