Re: [ox-en] Free market and the Internet
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 06:43:02 -0500 (EST)
On Sun, 2 Feb 2003, Stefan Meretz wrote:
On Sunday 02 February 2003 00:54, Graham Seaman wrote:
Another example of the difference between scarceness and being
rivalrous. I'm not sure if the meaning of the word 'rivalry' is clear
to German speakers - does anyone know the German word?
Rivalitaet? And this includes the meaning of "competition". For
competition we have two different words in german: Wettbewerb (say in
sports) and Konkurrenz (say in economy). Rivalry includes all this, IMHO.
Although Konkurrenz sounds bad, it originally means "running parallel"
(concurrent).
No, I think this discussion is at cross-purposes just because of a
difference in definitions. 'Rivalry' has a very specific meaning in
neo-classical economics quite different from the normal english meaning of
the word. It has no connection with the word 'competition'. A
non-rivalrous good is one which is not diminished in any way by sharing
it.
I know you think neo-classical economics is generally just ideological,
but in this case I think:
1. rivalry refers to a real phenomenon
2. I really dislike the (loaded) phrase 'intellectual property'.
'non-rivalrous goods' gives an alternative way of saying the same thing.
3. The idea of 'public goods', which is derived from that of non-rivalrous
goods (a 'public good' is non-rivalrous and non-excludable) is the weak
point of neo-classical economics: it was proved in the 60s that there is
no ideal price for public goods, and hence the whole approach of 'pareto
optima' etc (used to claim that the market always gives a quantifiably
best result for distribution of goods) collapses when faced with public
goods. It is the neo-classical equivalent of the transformation problem
for marxists: there are fudges to get round it, but no generally agreed
solutions. So although neo-classical economics introduced the idea of
'non-rivalrous goods' it has been unable to swallow it; the idea itself
points to a different society than the one neo-classical economics
describes, in spite of its claims to be universal.
Graham
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