From: ajit sinha (sinha_a99@YAHOO.COM)
Date: Tue Sep 21 2004 - 07:27:42 EDT
--- Ian Wright <iwright@GMAIL.COM> wrote: > Contrary to what Ajit argues, the actors do not need > to know the > prevailing wage or the prevailing return to labour > effort, although I > think this is the usual case. The law of value can > emerge via a > lower-bound on subsistence requirements. The > feedback information need > only be quantities of goods. This is a logical > point. It remains to be > seen whether this logical possibility connects with > any historical > events. > > More generally, there must be a shared behavioural > norm with > relatively low variance within the working > population for the law of > value to emerge (e.g., striving for similar > subsistence requirements, > striving for good wages, etc.) In my view, the > objective equality of > people is a condition of possibility of such a norm. > Simply put, such > ideas would not persist if they were not objectively > possible to > realise. ____________________ Ian, as you can see in making your argument you made the slip of saying "striving for good wages", but my argument was based on the fact that wages don't exist! Otherwise, your argument simply precludes people to be different. But we all know that some people are miserly and some are extravagant. Where would your theory go with a society full of such people? In any case, my main argument was that you simply don't know whether the good fortune of your neighbor is due to excess demand in the market for her products or her higher skill or her harder work. You simply don't know which one is the case, so how can you make your move? Cheers, ajit sinha _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com
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