Re: [OPE] Reply to critics

I suspect that in practice the overlap between them nowadays is very small, the civilian outgrowths of military technology are much less than they were say 60 years ago.

From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu [mailto:ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu] On Behalf Of Dave Zachariah
Sent: 30 September 2010 15:19
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
Subject: Re: [OPE] Reply to critics

On 29 September 2010 15:09, Jurriaan Bendien <adsl675281@telfort.nl<mailto:adsl675281@telfort.nl>> wrote:

But I see that as a problem for your theory, since an F-22 Raptor is a
commodity just like any other, built out of all kinds of other commodities.
Why should the same products sold and used to make a civilian plane count as
unproductive if they are used to make a military plane?


Upon re-reading this I noted another misunderstanding: those the production of components, e.g. radar system, that enter into both a Boeing 767 and an F-22 are *productive*, because the civilian air plane is a component of air travel which enters the real wage vector.

If w is the real wage vector and A is the production matrix, then the production of the non-zero elements of the vector:

c = (I - A)^-1 w

are the productive activities of the economy. Hence the quote above is a misunderstanding.

//Dave Z


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Received on Thu Sep 30 11:24:43 2010