(OPE-L) Re: Negative values in pure joint production

From: Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM
Date: Thu Oct 28 2004 - 08:02:38 EDT 

> Incidentally this distinction between the rate of return
> on equities and the real rate of interest is one of the
> reasons why, for all its mathematical rigour, the Okishio
> theorem fails to regulate actual capital accumulation.

 Paul C,

Could you explain this more?

> The future is
> no more overdetermined than the past. Both are characterised
> by uncertainty, in that for a given volume of state space
> at time t0 there exist time directed cones of possible
> past and future configurations of existence. These are
> strictly symetrical. The smaller the volume of contemporary
> state space that we consider the smaller will be the
> set of pasts and futures that are consistent with it.
> There is of course an asymetry in our knowlege about the
> past and future, but that is something quite distinct
> from material determination. But this gets us into deep
> questions regarding the philosophy of time.

With apologies to Einstein: while our knowledge about the
past is incomplete and affected by ideology and disinformation,
etc., there is always (at least for 'modern'  society) a greater level
of uncertainty about the future  --  *especially as the time
horizon is extended*.  The reason is not subjective.
The reason is simply that the past has happened (and
therefore can't be changed, even if  our _knowledge_ of and
_interpretations_ of the past can change) and the future hasn't.

I am reminded of a line from a children's story:
"All the King's horses and all the King's men can't put Humpty
Dumpty together again".

Now if Humpty Dumpty hadn't _already_ cracked, i.e. it was an
event that had not  (yet) happened, then (_if_ the cause was a
a  *social* event rather than a natural event that could
be predicted with mathematical precision, e.g. the course of
a comet) -- *especially as the time horizon is extended* --
the degree of uncertainty about what might happen is greater.

 In solidarity, Jerry

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Oct 29 2004 - 00:00:01 EDT