markets & diversity

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: markets & diversity

Michael Perelman wrote:

it's interesting (to me, at least), that the "ideal" market of neoclassical economics -- the perfectly competitive market -- does not allow diversity; diversity undermines perfection. On the other hand, the more realistic story of atomistic markets that neoclassical economics typically plays down -- the monopolistically competitive market -- is the one that assumes diversity, at least in terms of the product being sold.

Actually, all I'm doing is testing to see if my e-mail system will send. It ain't receiving. And I see pen-l as an all-important antidote to jury duty. I'm on a "ten day trial." I have two words about that: personal injury.

JD

>In his presidential address to the American Economic Association,
>Sherwin Rosen claimed that one of the benefits of the market is
>its ability to provide diversity.  Yet in a number of areas,
>diversity is shrinking.  Publishers resist printing books that
>cannot sell at Barnes & Noble.  Radio stations are becoming less
>diverse -- unless you include Web broadcasting.  Cable does allow
>for more diversity in some respects, but not insofar as politics
>is concerned.  Broadcasting Chomsky for three minutes on CNN was
>a big deal.

Bourdieu argues in his book On Television
<http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Why_TV_sucks.html> that
competition produces sameness, not diversity.

Doug