[OPE-L:7414] Re: Re: Re: Interpretations of the "numeraire"

[Rakesh Bhandari <rakeshb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

re 7413:

Gil,
as I see it, the Sraffian theory simply fails to capture an essential
feature of its purported object. Even if all things are priced in
terms of the numeraire, they could still be bartered; the numeraire
need not also have a monopoly over direct exchangeability. Gary has
himself noted this in 7402:

> It seems to me entirely irrelvent whether there is a
> market for the numeraire in terms of itself, as long as there is a market for
> it in terms of other goods.  And I'm not even sure there needs to be a market
> for it in terms of other goods if its function is purely to serve as a
> standard of measuring prices.

So, Gil,  aren't you saying that because the difference does not show
up in your analytical apparatus between (as Heiner Gansmann once
described it, and I think Fred is making the same point?) a ratio of
exhange expressed in terms of quantities of goods and actual money
price there is no real important difference between the two?

But certainly there is an important difference, and any
representation of the economic system which elides it seems open to
criticism.

Yours, Rakesh