On Sat, 2009-03-14 at 21:54 +0100, Dave Zachariah wrote:
> Philip Dunn wrote:
> >
> >> Are human beings capable of comparing loaves of bread quantitatively
> >> with other goods or services even if these are not commodities for
> >> exchange? If yes, then that is the property of commensurability that I'm
> >> referring to.
> >>
> >>
> > They could compare their utilities, I suppose. Subjective utility is not
> > even a property of the use-value.
> >
> >
>
>
> You are missing what I'm getting at: Are agents *capable* of some form
> of 'economic calculation' as Howard put it, e.g. making statements about
> equivalences between different quantities of qualitatively distinct
> goods and service, *outside* the context of exchangeable commodities?
>
Of course: for example, the marginal utility of x units of good A equals
the marginal utility of y units of good B.
Why have we we got "agents" now? "Economic calculation"? Is not this the
starting point of orthodox economics?
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Received on Sat Mar 14 20:24:37 2009
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