Sean Andrews wrote:
> [...] Hayek's system of
> value communication where in order for the market to function properly
> EVERYTHING must become a commodity--including people--whether the
> given society would like to consider it as such or not.
Now there's a totalitarian dystopia!
BTW, since Hayek's dystopia is impossible (among other things, because
people are human), that means that non-market institutions will always
exist, so that markets will never attain perfection. That means that
the "theory of the second best" (a very neoclassical theory ignored by
most neoclassicals) will still apply: making the markets more
efficient (producing more of the goods and services that people want
given the limited resources available) can involve instituting
non-market solutions rather than market ones.{*]
BTW2, "free market" economists have this dystopia in the back of their
minds. They see a hidden reality of the "realm of natural liberty" as
existing behind the messy appearances of the empirical world (just as
Plato saw an ideal world of "forms" as existing behind the phenomenal
world of shadows on the cave wall). Then, they want to force the
empirical world into the strait-jacket of that image (ignoring the
theory of the second best, of course).
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
[*] for example, suppose there's a monopoly that's also a polluter. If
we break the monopolist up using anti-trust laws and make it act like
a competitive market, there will be more production (at lower price)
-- and more pollution. A non-market solution of the sort the EPA is
supposed to impose is needed.
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