Re: Full Employment

[Clifford Poirot <cpoirot@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Surely we can define full employment without recourse to such a dubious
concept as "marginal utility" (or disutility).

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Davidson
To: Harry Veeder
Cc: pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 5/26/01 3:55 PM
Subject: Re: Full Employment

At 12:22 PM 5/25/01 +0100, you wrote:


>From the thread  Re: Keynes and competition
Paul Davidson wrote:



That is correct for the unemployed can always be employed or self
employed -- if money grows on trees (is reproducible) -- then as long as
the marginal utility of harvesting money from the money tree exceeds the
worker's marginal disutility of reaching up to harvest the tree, then
workers will  be employed or self employed util the marginal utility of
harvesting the last dollar equals the marginal disutility of reaching
up-- And this equality is the definition of full employment.



If you hold that money does not grow on trees, why do you advance this
as a
definition of full employment?

You need to supply another definition of full employment (where there
is no unemployment),  which is not dependent on money trees.




what is that Forrest Gump said that is relevant ot this last comment of
yours.

My definition has nothing to do with money growing on trees!

Full employment is defined as when the marginal utility of the last unit
of labor employed just equals the marginal disutility of the last unit
of labor supplied.

Paul

Paul Davidson
Editor, JOURNAL OF POST KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS
Holly Chair of Excellence in Political Economy
Economics Department - University of Tennessee
523 SMC
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0550
work phone: (865) 974-4221
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