Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Query on slavery

[enilsson@xxxxxxxxx]

Ken wrote,

> I didn't realize that neo-classicals assume that what exists is efficient.
> Do you have a reference?
> If what exists is efficient then no existing system could be ineffecient.
> Therefore neo-classicals could not complain about the ineffeciency of the
> former Soviet System or any other existing system.

A clarification: when the bulk of NC slavery research was done, the presumption
was that when markets determined the survival of the production unit (that is,
it excludes the soviet case) what survived in this envirnment was efficient. As
slave production units were explosed to the market, the presumption is that
they were efficient. Yes, they had the immoral market in people, but it was a
market and, so, it was also efficient (but immoral).

The NC "institutionalists" such as Williamson assume what exists within market
systems is efficient. Certain since the rise of "path dependence" et al, many
mainstream economists look at things a bit different.

Eric