On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Doug Henwood wrote:
> ChrisD(RJ) wrote:
>
> >No. It's not obvious to me. But I'm a pretty poor
> >leftist. I'm a fan of Hayek and Mises, and hard-headed
> >about efficiency.
> >jks
> >---
> >Why? What if people prefer to trade off efficiency for other perceived
> >goods?
>
> They're softheaded then.
>
> Doug
I think one thing we need to think about with the tradeoff between efficiency and other social needs is the incredible economic capacity of industrial societies. Auto factories are running at less than 50% capacity; about 2% of the population can produce more food than 260 million people in the U. S. can eat; and so on. I think this kind of excess capacity buys us more wiggle room in the efficiency department than Justin assumes.
Miles