Very amusing, Alan. But it seems to me that you miss  
the point. Imagine that the planks on the ship can  
think and choose, as you yourself do when you finger  
out your email. Would the ship be a ship? Or would it  
be a construct of the thinking and choosing plank  
leader who employed the thinking and choosing planks  
for a wage?  
  
The neoclassical firm is a puzzle indeed, albeit not  
in the context of the marginal productivity theory of  
distribution. It becomes a puzzle only when one shifts  
the focus away from consumer sovereignty and toward  
the issue of how distinctly human actors view what  
they are doing. When one makes this shift, he  
recognizes a more robust definition of the firm. The  
firm, he recognizes, is as an employment compact  
between a thinking and choosing employer and a  
thinking and choosing set of employees.  
  
Don't you agree that heat seeking missiles,  
fly-seeking frogs, and deer-seeking wolves are very  
much different from profit seeking prospective  
employers and employees. (Not to mention fun-seeking  
HES members.)  
  
Cheers  
  
Pat Gunning