Re: Brad speaks

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jim Devine wrote:

>  a
> former colleague of mine who objected because I referred to "the theory of
> comparative advantage" because "it's not a theory, it's simply true" (to
> paraphrase). (By the way, it _is_ a theory, since among other things it
> assumes zero mobility of labor and capital, it assumes away money, etc.)

I have always assumed that a "theory" is an *explanation* of facts rather
than an assertion of facts. Creationists, for example, base much of their
case on this confusion between a theory and the facts which the theory
is created to explain. So as Jim describes it, it hardly seems that the
theory of comparative advantage deserves to be called a theory even,
since a theory ought to have minimally straight (and complete) the facts
it pretends to explain. That is, I would think that any theory of trade
would take as its point of departure the necessity to explain the
vast inequalities that exist in the world today rather than deny those
inequalities.

Or is this naive?

Carrol