Re: [OPE] intermission: value of knowledge

Dogan

My response to you doesn't distinguish between the two, so I'm not sure what your question aims at. In the Smith quote 'free trade' could easily be read as 'free market', as you did. However my point was that Smith thought it impossible to obtain 100% free trade. This is not the same as the point you made to Jerry ie that fhe thought free trade was an illusion.

That is all I was saying.

Paul

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: D. Göçmen
  To: ope@lists.csuchico.edu
  Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 11:38 PM
  Subject: Re: [OPE] intermission: value of knowledge

  Paul,
  I thank you for consideration. Can you please explore a bit more on the difference between free trade and free market?
  D.Göçmen

  http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/
  http://www.dogangocmen.blogspot.com/

  -----Ursprüngliche Mitteilung-----
  Von: Paul Bullock <paulbullock@ebms-ltd.co.uk>
  An: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
  Verschickt: Do., 19. Nov. 2009, 1:11
  Thema: Re: [OPE] intermission: value of knowledge

  Thanks Dogan, then what you meant was that Smith said complete free trade, its 100% extension, was an illusion not , as you said before, that the considered 'the idea of free market and free trade (per se.- PBl) is an illusion', which is different.

  Thanks for allowing me to quickly address my concerns.

  Paul
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: D. Göçmen
    To: ope@lists.csuchico.edu
    Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 3:10 PM
    Subject: Re: [OPE] intermission: value of knowledge

    Dear Paul, the paragraph I was thinking of is this (WN, IV.ii.43/p. 471):

    "To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely
    restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or
    Utopia should ever be established in it. Not only the prejudices of the
    * publick, but what is much more unconquerable, the private interests of
    many individuals, irresistibly oppose it. Were the officers of the army to
    oppose with the same zeal and unanimity any reduction in the number of
    forces, with which master manufacturers set themselves against every law
    that is likely to increase the number of their rivals in the home market;
    were the former to animate their soldiers, in the same manner as the latter
    enflame their workmen, to attack with violence and outrage the proposers
    of any such regulation; to attempt to reduce the army would be as dangerous
    as it has now become to attempt to diminish in any respect the
    monopoly which our manufacturers have obtained against us. This
    monopoly has so much increased the number of some particular tribes of
    them, that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become formid-
    [2oT]able to the government, and upon many occasions intimidate the
    legislature, s9 The member of parliament who supports every proposal for
    strengthening this monopoly, is sure to acquire not only the reputation of
    understanding trade, but great popularity and influence with an order of
    men whose numbers and wealth render them of great importance. If he
    opposes them, on the contrary, and still more if he has authority enough to
    be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the
    highest rank, nor the greatest publick services can protect him from the
    most infamous abuse and detraction, from personal insults, nor sometimes
    from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed
    monopolists."

    D.Göçmen
    http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/
    http://www.dogangocmen.blogspot.com/

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Paul Bullock <paulbullock@ebms-ltd.co.uk>
    To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
    Sent: Sat, Nov 14, 2009 1:36 am
    Subject: Re: [OPE] intermission: value of knowledge

    Dogan... have you refs to Adam Smith saying this... ie 'illusion'?

    Paul B.
      ----- Original Message -----
      From: D. Göçmen
      To: ope@lists.csuchico.edu
      Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 2:11 PM
      Subject: Re: [OPE] intermission: value of knowledge

      With minor editing again:

      "Good point, Jerry. As Marx pointed out in *Grundrisse* the idea of *free market* implies a market without market forces even if we leave out the state. Already Smith pointed out that the idea of free market and free trade is an illusion. More generally, Engels, in his investigation into the concept of competition, pointed out that the division of labout resulting in private property implies some kind of monopolies and therefore power relations. Remember what Marx says about the dision of labour and private property in Capital: the divison of labour does not require private property as in a factory but private property does always."

      D.Göçmen
      http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/
      http://www.dogangocmen.blogspot.com/

      -----Original Message-----
      From: Gerald Levy <jerry_levy@verizon.net>
      To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
      Sent: Fri, Nov 13, 2009 3:28 pm
      Subject: Re: [OPE] intermission: value of knowledge

> What is different about knowledge is that it has high returns to scale,
> but as Michael has pointed out, capitalism has difficulty with all
> industries characterised by high returns to scale. It is forced to
> abandon the idea of the free market and resort to monopoly in
> these cases, whether it be railways or software publishing.
       
      Hi Paul C:
       
      Even where there are more competitive markets, the "free market" doesn't exist. One can only conceive of the possibility of a free
      market in the absence of a state, yet where the capital-form has
      existed historically so has the state-form. "Free market capitalism"
      is not a historical construct, it is an ideological one.
       
      Regarding the point that labor has to be expended preserving
      the material carriers of knowledge, that's true but it can also be
      vanishingly small. What, for instance, is the labor required to preserve a Class 6 SHDC and the data which has been stored in it? What's even more to the point is that although there is such preservation labor required, it doesn't correspond to the value of
      the knowledge.
       
      In solidarity, Jerry
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Received on Thu Nov 19 16:23:08 2009