From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Fri Oct 11 2002 - 05:58:47 EDT
Re Riccardo's [7787]: Previously I wrote: > >If by "ACTUAL life", you mean actual life in _today's_ capitalist social > >formations, then I would suggest a different dynamic: to the extent > >that (as a consequence of the concentration and centralization of capital) > >markets are increasingly dominated by *oligopolies* where there is a > >high degree of product differentiation, then the reverse is the case. > >I.e. rather than responding to demand in the marketplace, the oligopolies > >use (essentially, as part of their product differentiation strategy) > >advertising and marketing to *create* (individual and market) demand > >for their commodities. Thus, rather than consumer preferences being > >exogenous (as assumed in marginal utility theory and the doctrine of > >consumer sovereignty), business firms play a large role in shaping > >consumer preferences. Riccardo then asks and declares: > this is Galbraith (more or less), right? it's OK to me. I guess. I wasn't thinking of Galbraith when I wrote the post but if he wrote something similar then that's OK with me. > you are right, actual life was too short, I meant 'actual', answering > to Fred, as, say, a theoretical description of the actual working of > a capitalist economy in general. now, here I would say that > Robinson's way of putting things is right, that in capitalism workers > are exploited because their firms have good reasons to expect an > adequate amount of effective demand on the market, and effective > demand is driven (à la Keynes) by autonomous demand. in this I find > something which was foreign (as the micro-macro distinction) to Marx, > but which is quite compatible with his labour theory of value and > theory of capitalist development. IMHO Why and how would you integrate autonomous demand into such a theory? In solidarity, Jerry
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