Re: Occam's Razor

[BILL MITCHELL <ECWFM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Herb, I am getting a little more confused by the day. Let me tell you why.

BTW, I note that you are now using the term productivity instead of efficiency.

>	The quote you read does not imply that I believe there is an
>efficiency-equity trade-off. It is clear that both issues of
>productivity and distribution affect which institutional forms prevail
>in the economy, but it is not clear exactly where, how, and to what
>extent. It is also true that SOME egalitarian measures severely hurt
>productivity and SOME productivity advances are inegalitarian. None of
>the implies that there is an inherent efficiency-equity trade-off.

You have also avoided directly answering my points. In a capitalist system, i
think efficiency is about distribution. moves to make the distribution of
income more egalitarian as you say in the workplace will surely reduce
capitalist efficiency b/c they must mean less surplus will be realisable.

it is not b/c any marginal equalities are being disturbed though. in a surplus
world margins are pretty meaningless, n'est-ce pas?

I also note you talk about markets, productivity, egalitarianism without
explicity saying how this is all accounted for. of-course, i know. the market
you refer to as really an excellent governance form (supplemented by some
regulations from govt. and community), accounts for things in terms of private
capitalist costs. productivity will be measured in private capitalist terms.
egalitarianism will be measured in terms of capitalist measures of national
income and capitalist employment.

where i am coming from is fairly alien to all of this. you discuss things as an
economist who is closely aligned to the orthodoxy. words like productivity and
efficiency and regulation (supplementary governance), are all orthodox in their
meanings as you use them.

a capitalist market place will never be productive in the sense that the two
dynamic systems of humanity and nature are contemporaneously nourished and
sustained. capitalism as a system of production has no intrinsic soul when it
comes to judging humanity or nature. both are just resources to be used in the
surplus extraction process by a subset of the former. capitalist production has
no morality, no ethics, and has little eye to the future.

history tells us clearly, time after time, that supplementary governance of the
market by govt. can only achieve limited constraints. the dynamism of
capitalism requires new capital to emerge. over time, old capital gets big, and
obeys the rules within limits. it goes to the same posh clubs of the
legislators and does deals after the golf etc. but when we talk of competition
what we mean is the new capital, brazen, immoral, and for the time operating at
the fringes of the social setting. its only goal is surplus and more capital.
it cheats (hires non award labour - like migrants etc, exploiting relative
poverty levels and desperations) and pollutes (hiding evidence, dumping waste
etc), and the very fringe of this set is straight forwardly crooked, with
the options like peddling drugs etc always available. Old K also (via many
corporate arrangements) funds new K, so that it can stay at the edge of
immorality. I read this how American Express was dealing in drugs and crime and
the like via some sham outfit.

when govt. gets to demanding it gets overrun by conspirators (like in Chile) or
merely faces the debilitating decay as K goes on strike.

i fail to see that the capitalist market has been excellent. sure it delivers
consumer goods to many people. but even in your own country, people are
tormented by poverty, homelessness and malnourishment. not too mention the rest
of the starving masses around the world. and further nature is dying from the
lack of care. and further, early capitalism required new markets to exploit and
trampled the rights of indigenous people all around the world. it is still
happening as capitalist markets seek new opportunities.

so concepts of efficiency and productivity are very loaded. you use them in the
narrowist of meanings, and fall very close to orthodox connotations.

my view is that marxist analysis of the capitalist system is still very
apposite. it is the only framework for really understanding the motivations of
the system. the futility of trying to make it humane. and even more so, the
falsity in thinking it acknowledges our natural world. i am of the view that
humanity is just part of the natural world. we are not above it or beyond it.
in time, its bleeding will be our bleeding. capitalist markets just are
inadequate in dealing with this. the goals of the system are anathema to the
needs of free humans and a free natural world.

for someone of my age, marxist thought combined with an understanding of
ecological science is the only coherent system to aim for. b/c humanity can
define producitivity in a way that does not rely on narrow materialistic
(capitalist) measures. efficiency (non-capitalist) takes on a whole new
meaning. how we define work takes on a whole new meaning as does the
distribution of income.

the capitalist market requires growth as a logical part of the system. nature
and humanity require freedom not growth. a reliance on the c. market will never
deliver the latter.

kind regards
bill
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