From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Fri Apr 13 2007 - 05:10:16 EDT
> > Allin, I now understand the point of your comments from your
> > other posts of 4/9 and I agree with the analysis -- there is
> > waste that is necessary and goes into the calculation of what is
> > socially necessary. The value of each dinner served embodies,
> > if you like, an appropriate portion of the dinners thrown out.
Allin and Howard:
An alternative way of looking at the question would be to view
the additional expenditures for meals which are produced with the
expectation that a certain amount will not be sold and discarded
as faux frais: a customary, incidental expense associated with
production. In a way, it's similar to insurance.
> The view on this topic that Paul and I hold came from thinking
> about such issues as planning problems. (When you solve the
> planning problem, you can work back and see whether a capitalist
> economy will produce a similar solution, or -- as is generally the
> case -- a systematically worse solution.)
As a way of understanding capitalism, I think it is idealist to begin
by asking what could happen in a non-existent, hypothetical
('ideal-type') mode of production and then working backwards to
"see whether a capitalist economy will produce a similar solution".
In solidarity, Jerry
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