Re: Is information the fourth factor of production? Was - Re: what's wrong with eastern germans?
From: Robert Vienneau (rvien_at_see.sig.com)
Date: 08/18/04
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Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 21:41:01 -0400
In article <35o4i0ls7296134pcjgtl8km9i9knblidi@4ax.com>,
oldnasty@mindspring.com wrote:
> What do we call a productive factor that is created and obtained by
> investment of money and labor?
>
> It is called "capital".
>
> But this sort is very clearly distinct from classical capital, an
> additional factor of production, most generically called "human
> capital". It is prominently recognized and analyzed as a distinct
> factor of productivity in the economic literature of, oh, the last
> hundred years.
> That is, as long as one disregards the economic cost of investing
> money and labor to develop it ... to create skills sets in people so
> they can use it ...to create organization structures that make its use
> possible, and so on.
>
> Hey, you're going to grad school soon aren't you?
>
> Why are you going to be paying all that tuition and doing all that
> work -- investing money and labor -- to obtain information and develop
> skills that will add to your productive capacity when they *aren't
> scarce*? You should already have them for free!
> Well, if one doesn't have a standard text on economic development at
> hand, one could, working up the intellectual ladder, in about 30
> seconds, google up...
>
> "Most modern analyses usually cite four to seven types of capital..."
> http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Factors%20of%20production
Jim Glass is either ignorant or just pretending there is a
settled theory on these matters.
The fact is that mainstream economists have no settled theory of
capital and what explains the returns to capital. What theories
they had were demolished years ago in the Cambridge Capital
Controversy.
And teaching reflects this confusion. Reference:
M. I. Naples and N. Aslanbigui, "What *Does* Determine the
Profit Rate? The Neoclassical Theories Presented in Introductory
Textbooks", Cambridge Journal of Economics, V. 20, p. 53-71,
1996.
This confusion is continued in theories of different types of "capital",
e.g., human capital.
I am not endorsing the views expressed elsewhere on this thread,
inasmuch as I have been paying little attention.
-- Try http://csf.colorado.edu/pkt/pktauthors/Vienneau.Robert/Bukharin.html To solve Linear Programs: .../LPSolver.html r c A game: .../Keynes.html v s a Whether strength of body or of mind, or wisdom, or i m p virtue, are found in proportion to the power or wealth e a e of a man is a question fit perhaps to be discussed by n e . slaves in the hearing of their masters, but highly @ r c m unbecoming to reasonable and free men in search of d o the truth. -- Rousseau
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