I once took graduate micro with Steven N.S. Cheung. He once mentioned that Chinese fathers used to sell their children. He said, "That's all right; they were just maximizing their wealth."
I did not have the guts to ask if his statement was positive or normative. > >I wrote - see below. >My apologies to Jim for my breach of etiquette (putting a friend's name in the >subject line). Will not happen again. It was good-natured humor, said our >esteemed leader. He is right. > >But now, seriously, just as feminists who say "herstory", instead of >"history," a political economist who writes "markets can do know wrong", >instead of "markets can do no wrong," makes a statement that Bert Brecht could >have made had he written in English. It is a kind of linguistic guerrilla >attack on market fundamentalists who believe that markets can do no wrong. The >witty statement hints at the possibility that market fundamentalists actually >know (in a way) that markets can do wrong. Rather than being naive, market >fundamentalists may know that markets do wrong, but they still deny it, >because they love what markets do. Why would they do that? Possible >explanation: class interests. > >Take the example of slave trade. Slave trade functioned according to market >principles. Apologists of the slave trade were of the opinion that markets can >do no wrong; that the market was functioning efficiently, etc. But being >members of Christian civilized nations (in the case of the Atlantic slave >trade) or Muslim civilized nations (in the case of Arab slave trade) they must >have known (in a way) that there was something wrong (humanly speaking) with >that kind of trade. Why would they still claim that markets can do no wrong? >Either they were denying/repressing something that they knew or they had an >ideological blind spot. In either case, their markets were serving their >business/class interests very well. [The market mechanism by itself is thus no >defense against slave trade or against global apartheid, as I wrote in one of >my books.] > >Jim's witty Brechticism was thus like a humourous interlude in a Shakespearian >tragedy - a flash of wisdom. (how do you like that, Jim?) > >Gernot K. >From: gk...@xxxxxxxxxxxx >To: [email protected] >Subject: markets can do know wrong (Devine doctrine) >Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 13:54:37 -0500 > > > > > > > > >Subject: Re: [Pen-l] oops proper cite >From: Jim Devine >Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 > >[quote] Milanovic's piece sounds like a fuzzier version of one of my >current-events talks, such as: >http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/april23Talk.doc >[end quote] > >That blog contains this line: >[quote] Greenspan ignored the existence of bubbles ... believing that markets >could do know wrong >[end quote] >More than a quib? A new doctrine? > > > > >Take your contacts everywhere. Try Messenger for mobile > >_________________________________________________________________ >Take your contacts everywhere >http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9712959 > _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
