> If comparative statics is a successful axis of abstraction, then it helps us to identify economic forces that will still operate in the actual concrete.
> If it is not, in some or all cases in which it is used, then it needs to be criticized on that basis, not merely dismissed as ‘magic’ etc.
Hi Michael:
Ah ... so you didn't like my 'it's magic" comment some time back.
The point I was making is that there is no coherent "story" in
mainstream economics about how you get from 'perfect competition'
to oligopolization (or other 'market structures').
What does the "insight" of perfect competition allow us to
understand about the subject of competition?
I don't quite see anything similar in Hegelian-Marxian theory:
they don't start by postulating an "ideal type" and then simply
comparing it to non-ideal types, do them? Indeed, doesn't
the whole notion of *systematic* dialectics suggest the coming
into being of a new form (let's say, oligopolies) must be explained
rather than simply asserted or compared to an elementary form?;
doesn't systematic dialectics require that one comprehends
competition as a process in motion?
In solidarity, Jerry
_______________________________________________
ope mailing list
ope@lists.csuchico.edu
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
Received on Thu Oct 9 15:16:12 2008
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Wed Dec 03 2008 - 15:12:03 EST