(from a few days ago) At 13 November 2002, 09:27 PM, Ma Be wrote:
Please let me explain. I consider myself as an expert on a management tool known as optimization. 'Maximizing' something falls under this category of management science tool, therefore, I can argue on this from a scientific point-of-view.You have just admitted that no one can possibly optimize the "process" of metrication, since it is IMPOSSIBLE to "take into account ALL peripheral constraints and parameters pertinent to the problem."
Maximization processes must take into account ALL peripheral constraints and parameters pertinent to the problem. And this may NOT *necessarily* mean that 'free markets' are THE answer even!!! One can argue that a *combination* of some state-controled constraints with 'free market' forces could be THE combination that would ultimately '*maximize* individual freedom(s)' indeed!
The "problem" involves millions of companies, and hundreds of millions of people and products. As Nobel-prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek has pointed out (posted here a few days ago):
Interesting paragraph in a bio, relating to this issue, from http://www.mises.org/hayekbio.asp:Dr. W. Edwards Deming, one of the giants of the quality manufacturing movement, and one of the most important figures in rise of Japan from the ashes of WWII, has a list of "Seven Deadly Diseases" relating to manufacturing. Number 5:
<<snip>>
Much of the knowledge necessary for running the economic system, Hayek contended, is in the form not of "scientific" or technical knowledge--the conscious awareness of the rules governing natural and social phenomena--but of [tacit] knowledge, the idiosyncratic, dispersed bits of understanding of "circumstances of time and place." This tacit knowledge is often not consciously known even to those who possess it and can never be communicated to a central authority. The market tends to use this tacit knowledge through a type of "discovery procedure" (Hayek, 1968a), by which this information is unknowingly transmitted throughout the economy as an unintended consequence of individuals' pursuing their own ends.(17)
<<snip>>
"5. Running a company on visible figures alone. The most important figures are unknown and unknowable -- the multiplier effect of a happy customer, for example."
So, Marcus, if optimization requires taking into account ALL constraints and parameters, and some of those constraints and parameters are UNKNOWN and UNKNOWABLE, then clearly one cannot in any conscious way "optimize" the process of metrication.
Which leaves us back to the free market as the only reasonable mechanism for allowing the many parties involved to have input into the metrication process.
Perhaps I should make clear that I don't claim the free market is a PERFECT system for handling metrication.
However, I still claim, and believe Vernon Smith would agree, that it is the BEST system we have available.
Regards,
Jim
