But this "Dow at 3000" bet has given me an idea. Let's see if he is willing to put his money where his mouth is.
To recap: RB claimed that in Grossmann's scheme, capitalist consumption necessarily "declines absolutely" long before the breakdown. In response, I noted that "I have generated numerical examples (employing Grossmann's own restrictions) in which the consumption of the capitalists -- the amount of GOODS they consume -- rises and rises and rises, until the year of breakdown."
Interestingly, RB did not dispute this. In fact, he tacitly acknowledged that it is true. But he nonetheless accused me of not "want[ing] to be accurate" because I did not write that "the amount of goods rises and rises in real terms *at a diminishing rate*."
He said it "declines absolutely." I corrected him, saying it is possible that it "rises and rises." What he said was inaccurate; what I said was accurate. But somehow, according to RB, *I'm* the one who's inaccurate, and who doesn't want to be accurate, because I didn't add the words "at a diminishing rate" when I corrected him. As if it is somehow morally incumbent upon me to describe every feature of a variable's path when correcting his error. As if "rises and rises at a diminishing rate" is not *just as much* the negation of "declines absolutely" as "rises and rises" is.
But back to the bet. Just what allows RB to assert that capitalist consumption in Grossmann's scheme rises only "at a diminishing rate"? What allows him to deny that it can RISE AT AN INCREASING RATE (until, of course, the demand for investment goods meets or exceeds the supply of investment goods, so that capitalist consumption then plummets to zero)? I suspect that this is a COMPLETELY BOGUS claim. I suspect that it is perfectly possible for capitalist consumption to RISE AT AN INCREASING RATE, right up until the breakdown.
So here's the bet, RB. You prove your claim by October 30, 1998, and I'll give you $1000. Fail to do so, and you pay me $50. Yep, 20 to 1.
Andrew ("Drewk") Kliman Home: Dept. of Social Sciences 60 W. 76th St., #4E Pace University New York, NY 10023 Pleasantville, NY 10570 (914) 773-3951 Andrew_Kliman at msn.com
"... the *practice* of philosophy is itself *theoretical.* It is the *critique* that measures the individual existence by the essence, the particular reality by the Idea." -- K.M.