[OPE-L:7100] [OPE-L:600] Law of one price and equilibrium

Alan Freeman (a.freeman@greenwich.ac.uk)
Fri, 05 Mar 1999 14:29:16 +0000

I'm finding this exchange with Gil very stimulating, leading as it does
down paths that are rarely discussed in neoclassical economics, but
probably need to be.

Gil writes that he's glad I accept Palgrave as an authority.

I'm afraid I repudiate authority as a source of truth, whether Marx, Palgrave,
or Birkhoff/MacLane. I cited Benassy to break through the wall of
pseudo-authority that surrounds these discussions by showing that the concept
of equilibrium I advanced was held by at least *one* other person, so that
no-one could dismiss it as a fantasy of Freeman's.

Seems to have worked. That said, let's stop discussing sources of authority
and discuss the logical structure of the argument.

For that matter I cited Birkhoff and MacLane to break through the wall of
pseudo-authority that surrounds the use of mathematics. So far, that doesn't
seem to have worked. So I'll make it the subject of a separate post.

Alan