From: Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM
Date: Sun Nov 07 2004 - 10:18:10 EST
> In regards to marginalism's economic agent,the subjectivist theory of > value accords a wholly unreal power and autonomy to the consumer in > the determination of value. Rakesh, In addition to what you wrote, I have an additional observation. a) while the doctrine of consumer sovereignty and related assumptions (i.e. consumer preferences are exogenous; there is rational behavior on the part of consumers; consumers have perfect information about the prices and qualities of all commodities that they might purchase) have never been valid, the course of capitalist history has demonstrated it to be even less realistic over time. I.e. even under the assumed conditions of perfect competition, it was obviously ideological in content; with the increase in the concentration and centralization of capital and then the emergence of oligopolistic markets which emphasize product differentiation and promotion, marketing, and advertising it has become _more and more_ blatantly inaccurate. b) while Marxian theory has always accorded a greater role to suppliers (capitalists) in price determination than consumer sovereignty asserts, it hasn't done a great job in articulating price determination and the changed relationship between consumers and business firms once there is advertising and oligopolistic markets. In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Nov 08 2004 - 00:00:01 EST