mck@ratex.UUCP (Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan) (02/02/85)
Mr Sevener has again added to the ever-growing number of netnews
straw men! He accuses me of failing to keep an 'eye on the REAL WORLD',
employing unreal abstraction, and 'presuming that all economic activity
comes under the sphere of the market'. When re-presenting my discussion,
Sevener omits the section on 'REAL LIFE APPLICATION', where I brought the
analysis to bear on the REAL WORLD. The abstraction that seems to bother
Sevener the most, the transaction frequency, is quite real -- it's just the
rate at which the average dollar changes hands. And the analysis
did NOT presuppose that all economic activity comes under the sphere of
the market. It did IGNORE economic activity outside of the market for the
simple reason that I was explaining what caused increased in the price
level; goods and services which have no price can't very well have changes
in their non-existent prices. Mr Sevener on the one hand points out that
some goods and services change hands 'without any transactions involving
money' and then complains that such activity is not 'usually measured or
accounted for in economists monetary theory'; but if money doesn't fit
into the picture, then money doesn't fit into the picture (I hope that
everybody understands that).
Mr Sevener's claim that 'the real purpose of economic activity is'
'supplying ourselves with concrete material goods' is inaccurate. For
example, I have donated money and labor to political and medical causes
which I do not expect to enhance my material well-being (I suspect that
Sevener has, at one time or another, done likewise).
Overcome by ennui,
Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan