====================== HES POSTING ==================== 
 
Bert Mosselmans wrote: 
 
> ...The conception of 'opportunity costs' operates within a context 
> of fixed, given resources, which have to be allocated in an optimal way. 
> Scarcity is given externally : if you take something from one side, you can 
> take less of something else...This statical framework makes an 
> 'opportunity cost' conception of scarcity possible, which is disentagled 
> from limits to growth. 
 
Bert, it seems to me that there are two issues raised by these remarks, 
which are part of what I take to be your broader scheme of interpretation. 
First, the concept of scarcity, as it came to be expressed in the notion 
of opportunity cost in the late 1800s (Wieser, Green, Davenport), did not 
assume a "statical" framework at all. It assumed only that each 
individual, acting as such, cannot completely satisfy her ends at the time 
she is acting. This concept is perfectly consistent with a world in which 
natural resources or technology are growing. The world with which it is  
not consistent is one in which there is universal bliss. Perhaps you are  
using a different meaning of "statical" than that which the U.S. writers  
around the turn of the century, following Clark, for example, used to  
refer to the "static equilibrium" and the "static method." 
 
Second, why use the concept of scarcity at all in relation to growth? Does 
this not risk a confusion between a macroeconomic problem (absence of 
limits to growth) and a microeconomic problem (scarcity = the presence of 
opportunity costs)? 
 
I realize that you have limited your interest to the British -- 
specifically, to the relationship between the classical British 
economists and Jevons. I am not suggesting that you expand your interest, 
just that you reconsider your use of terms. 
 
Pat Gunning 
 
 
============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]