Yeah, I can definitely sympathize with having somewhat less than pleasant online conversations with one of the Parecon people ;) ... but of course, that often happens online.
But that said, Parecon ideas appear reasonable to me, or at least a useful direction...
> Note that it
> is markets that give us the idea of an opportunity
> costs and a reason to find out what they are.
Well, the problem is, I don't find opportunity costs to be unique to any particular economic system/institution, or even economics itself. It's more fundamental than that, a concept which pops up in many classes of rational decisionmaking.
AI people use the same concepts when modelling all sorts of rational decisionmakers; when deciding what you want on your dinner plate, in driving a car, etc.
Jim Devine wrote:
> BTW, I don't know of any mainstream economists who are ignorant of
> opportunity costs. Everyone knows about it, including
> non-mainstreamers like myself.
These economists just can't correctly answer questions about it, apparently. (Even though they probably teach it to their students.)
http://epp.gsu.edu/pferraro/docs/ferrarotaylorbep.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/business/01scene.html?ex=1283227200&en=178537355ee405f1&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
tfast wrote:
> Hayek is indeed the place to start. He makes the argument that
> prices are an information signalling system. A very accessible
> paper is here:
> a.. Hayek, F. A. 1945. "The Use of Knowledge in Society".
> [HTML format] American Economic Review. Vol. 35, No. 4. (Sept):
> 519-530. [PDF format version]
Thanks for the cite!
Tayssir