G'day Rod,
>
> I really hope you've excited some threads with these big calls, Rod! This
> is stuff we have to grab with both hands, I reckon. I mean, how
> do CEOs get
> away with extolling the virtues of capitalism when their own
> firms, based on
> internal non-market relations as they are, definitively
> contradict that body
> of thought by their very existence? Why is calculation not a
> problem - 'coz
> big firms (often bigger than some national economies) openly do
> it already?
> Coz developments in computation technologies make possible what
> was not when
> Mises and Hayek dipped their nibs? 'Coz we're run by need-insensitive
> instrumentalists already, and might as well have need-sensitive (&
> effectively need-defining) instrumentalists in positions of consequently
> mighty political clout as them?
>
> Anyone around here game to grasp them nettles?
>
> Cheers,
> Rob.
===============
Way to go Rob!
The present and future of computation does fundamentally offer the
opportunity to throw the last pieces of Hayek-Von Mises argument into the
dustbin if we can generate a really good political economy of computation.
I know C & C have been working on this a while, but there is a gold mine of
opportunity if we can reach out to the computer freaks; alot of whom find
capitalist firms the real authoritarian threat in their everyday lives [piss
tests, non-compete clauses etc.]. It is Capital that is creating Panopticon
not the state [although I'll be the first to admit they're in collusion] and
we would do well to revive the arguments of countervailing power in order to
wake them from their so called "libertarian" slumbers. Markets are already
managed so why so much beef about ownership of the MOP if even the geeks who
make the whole thing run can't even own the contents of their own minds
anymore? The left definitely needs a better libertarian argument than what
the liars at Wired have to offer. A poltical economy of self-ownership and
computation perhaps?
Ian
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Rob Schaap
> Sent: Monday, January 31, 2000 8:16 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [PEN-L:15873] Re: Re: Re: on how economists publish
>
>
>
>
> ----------
> > From: Rod Hay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: [PEN-L:15871] Re: Re: on how economists publish
> > Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 22:18:46 -0500
> >
> >Some one has a strange view of economics if these are considered the most
> >important articles. Coase's paper is one of the great mysteries of
> bourgeois
> >economics. How did such a vague, (fundamentally limited) paper
> ever attract
> any
> >attention at all. Mises is wrong on socialism. Calculation is not an
> >insurmountable problem.
> >
> >
> >
> >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> >> OK, but consider that among the most important works of
> economics of the
> last
> >> century are Mises' article from 1920 on socialist calculation, Lange's
> >> "reply" and Hayek's response, all journal articles, and
> Coase's paper on
> the
> >> theory of the firm, perhaps THE most important work in 20th century
> >> economics. Wasn't Arrow and Debreu originally a journal article, too?
> >>
> >> Sure, there's also the Theory of the Leisure Calss and the General
> Theory,
> >> etc. But the point si taht you don't have to writea book to think a
> >> different thought. You just need vision and economy of style,w hich of
> >> coursea re hard commodities to come by.
> >>
> >> --jks
> >>
> >> In a message dated 00-01-31 19:35:24 EST, you write:
> >>
> >> << The contemporary economics profession emphasizes the journal article
> as
> >> the vehicle for developing new knowledge claims in economics. In
> important
> >> and poorly understood respects, this practice has changed the ways in
> which
> >> knowledge claims are developed. More importantly, it has also affected
> the
> >> type of knowledge claims that _can_ be developed. This is because the
> space
> >> limitations imposed by the journal format encourage the adoption of
> >> formalized thinking that economizes on space by making use of
> conventional
> >> assumptions and frameworks. In doing so, it places a huge handicap on
> those
> >> trying to develop new visions that embody both new sets of assumptions
> and
> >> new sets of economic relations. This is because such projects require
> >> enormously more space in which to justify assumptions, and to develop
> the
> >> particulars governing the framework of analysis. Contrastingly,
> scholarship
> >> that proceeds within the convention is free of these burdens,
> since the
> >> underlying assumptions and framework are taken for granted. >>
> >
> >--
> >Rod Hay
> >[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >The History of Economic Thought Archive
> >http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html
> >Batoche Books
> >http://home.golden.net/~rodhay
> >52 Eby Street South
> >Kitchener, Ontario
> >N2G 3L1
> >Canada
> >
>
