--- John Medaille wrote:  
  
> Clark believed that the forces of free   
> competition would force prices to equal the cost   
> of production,(16)driving the rate of profit to   
> zero, so that the entrepreneur would earn little  
> more than the worker.(111-12)  
  
This overlooks the producer surplus, which is mostly  
land rent, and indeed (as Ricardo wrote) does not  
enter into the cost of production, hence is a social  
surplus. The ethics of equity has to confront who  
should receive this surplus.  And this has nothing to  
do with equilibrium, as the surplus exists also in  
disequlibrium and in economic dynamics.  
   
> Of course, Clark's real target was Henry George's   
> moral account of economics.   
  
Agreed.  
  
> Without   
> profit, there could be no economic rents and   
> hence no possibility of exploitation.  
  
But of course if a supply curve slopes up, there is a  
"producer surplus" which (as Marshall recognized) is  
really mostly land rent, and since land is not a  
produced good, the suruplus is really a "non-producer"  
surplus.  
  
> The flip answer would be to ask if you think   
> human systems should rest on an immoral   
> rationale.   
  
No. I believe that there is a moral imperative for  
humanity, along the lines of Locke's Second Treatise.  
  
> But I suspect you may regard economics   
> as an amoral system,  
  
No.  In my judgment, the very concept of a market  
implies an ethic by which we can judge what is  
voluntary, hence within the market, and involuntary,  
hence outside the market, as theft is.  The "market"  
is defined by this universal ethic, which also  
prescribes equity.  The market, properly understood,  
is thus inherently ethical (not evil), since it is  
determined in the first place by the ethic.    
  
> ... since the specifics of justice vary from   
> culture to culture, we should just do away with the  
> whole idea?  
> John C. Medaille  
  
No, but we should recognize that besides cultural  
values there is a rational universal ethic (or natural  
moral law) that can be derived using reason.  As John  
Locke wrote in the Second Treatise:  
  
"The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it,  
which obliges every one, and reason, which is that  
law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that  
being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm  
another in his life, health, liberty or possessions."  
  
Fred Foldvary