| This question <5|10> overall <5|7> Hans: <3|8>. |
| Question 4: Can you think of things which are part of the riches of capitalist society but which are not produced for and traded on markets? |
| [6] Hans: There are hardly ever shortages in neoclassical Economics VonMises's argument in [4] is in full accord with neoclassical economics, and it shows clearly how absurd this brand of economics is. If the supply of water diminishes, then the price will go up, and therefore demand will diminish too. Result: expensive water but no “shortage”, since everyone who is able to pay the market price will get it. |
| This is the reality of Economics 101. The reality outside the classroom is better described by the following passage in an article in the Nation on May 28, 2001 by Maude Barlow: |
| And why should young people not be angry? We are poisoning the world's fresh water. By the year 2025, two-thirds of the world will not have adequate access to clean water. Large water transnationals salivate in anticipation of the profits to be made from such shortages as they prepare to commodify and sell water on the open market for profit. That's an abomination beyond anything that any protester did on that wall yesterday. |
| (Maude is referring here to the penetration of the wall by protesters in Quebec City.) The commercialization of water is an abomination because there will be lots and lots of people who will not be able to afford commercialized water, because they cannot sell their labor or whatever economic resources they have. As long as the most important market of all, the labor market, does not clear, the reliance on the wondrous market mechanisms is mere wishful thinking. |
| VonMises allowed me to publicize his grades: his contribution would have been an A had it been a graded submission. If I could give “weights” in addition to grades, I would count it not as a full but as a half homework submission (something like this will be instituted eventually, I don't know if I get to it this Semester). |
| Just as I am sending this away, Squeezy's [5] arrived. As you can probably tell, I am in full agreement with Squeezy. He and I said exactly the same thing. |
|
|
|||||