opportunity cost addendum

By
From Samuels and Schmid-see number 9 through 11:


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

. Veblen ch. 5 Instinct of Workmanship pg. 194-201

By
  Vebeln starts this section with a discussion of those peoples of northern Europe who have apparently made the greatest advances in technological proficiency in the industrial age.  His claim is that they have not been under a filly patriarchal system and its attendant authoritative rule of government. They have been fragments in forms of local self government and have shown a  degree of skepticism towards religion for example. The important point has lees to do with the specifics of Veblen's analysis than with how he is performing a cultural analysis to understand how habits of thought or institutions are formed and altered over time that explain the economy. He writes that northern Europeans were unable for whatever reason to excel in building great artifacts or civilizations but did excel in fighting and small-scale crafts. As he writes, “their best efficiency has rather run to those bull-headed deeds of force and those mechanic arts that touch closely on the domain o...
Read more

Veblens Instinct of workmanship pg 265 - 283

By
 In this set of pages, Veblen continues his exploration of the transformation of various cultural and religious practices as the handicraft era of industry continues to evolve.  Veblen notes that the religious move is towards autonomy and more focus on the individual self and more in line with a protestant view as opposed to a catholic view of christianity. Another major movement that occurred during the handicraft era according to Veblen in political history and thought was the creation of nation states. Veblen sees the handicraft era as supplying the necessary means for large states to exist and for warmaking to be feasible on a large scale. Veblen is at pains to note that handicraft workers did not wish to subject themselves to the coercion of the nation state but rather this was a side effect of the price system and its principle of self-help.  Why? In essence according to Veblen, princes of states could buy from a larger catchment era the needs for war and could even...
Read more

Veblen's Instinct of Workmanship pg. 63 - 73

By
 In this first section of our reading today, Veblen acknowledges that the impact of ceremony on tool using will vary by the type of activity being undertaken.    This first set of paragraphs immediately points to relative degree of ceremony versus industry comparison if we want to sue that terminology.   this is opposed to the typical depiction which seems to be that ceremony and industry are simply opposed parts of a binary dichotomy. Veblen also notes how slow the development of human using tools seems to be in general. The next section points to the issue of the "state of the industrial arts", a term Veblen will constantly use throughout his writings to indicate the state of tools and technology in a human society.  The rest of this section highlights differences between various cultures in terms of their development and uptake of tools and technology.  He discusses the native culture of the northern Arctic and how they were able to develop appropri...
Read more