Sunk costs (was Co-state variables)
Rakesh Bhandari
bhandari at phoenix.Princeton.EDU
Mon May 18 08:45:14 PDT 1998
I am way behind; Brad's initial post in this thread lauded the price or
free market system for its ability to shut down obsolscent enterprises.
Indeed for Nathan Rosenberg and other bourgeois apologists the virtue of
the stock market is its provision of investors who have no vested interest
in an industrial status quo less efficient than available successors. The
marketability of shares is supposed to allow investors for whom sunk costs
have zero value to prove wrong decisions which have been rendered obsolete
by the availability of superior alternatives. In short, the market in
shares and the decentralization of authority it embodies putatively prevent
those who have already selected investment alternatives from having any
power to prevent their decisions from being invalidated by future events,
while a central authority would prevent the financing of those intending to
prove they made a mistake typing up so much capital in this or that
investment.
So how does Doug's book serve as a critique of this bourgeois apology of
the stock market?
Best, Rakesh
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