Capitalism: Competition, Conflict and Crises, Lecture 8: Perfect Competition

Professor Shaikh discusses Chapter 7, Value, Pricing, Wages, Profit Margins, Capital Intensity and] 'Perfect Competition'.

[@jayjaymcfly7475]

Ok, guys. I read the book half. I am an electrical engineer from Germany and just started to investigate economy. One year I have spend watching Anwars lectures and a lot of post-keynsian books I read. This is the second time I watch this lecture series on YT, and now I actually understand what Anwar is saying. This content is so unbelievably profound, I recommend everybody conentrating on his work. I am currently preparing my own YT channel to bring those topics to a broader public, so we understand what is happening around us. Lets hope we get to a new place, where things are better.

[@SusanSt.James-33]

The book clearly points to the need to reframe the industrial organization course as well as regulation and enforcement of competition. Real competition, a real approach indeed.

[@polvotierno]

Absolutely brilliant...

[@jsbart96]

Agreed! :)

[@nthperson]

After my own study of the history of political economy from Richard Cantillon on, and then reading and studying the writings of Keynes, I became quite perplexed by the extent to which Keynes ignored the existence of privilege under the socio-political arrangement and institutions within his own society. Keynes essentially ignored the systemic problems affecting the production and distribution of wealth. Britain had always been and still is a rentier-dominated society. Keynes had little to say about this as a drain on economic production or on the just distribution of wealth as money wages to those who contributed to production.

[@lowersaxon]

Keynes was well aware of this and wrote about it.

[@atxmuney]

Thank you for this Anwar

[@justinlevy274]

Movie is called Silver Chalice

[@lowersaxon]

My well being comes from things. From people? Sure, from bakerman who‘s baking bread.

[@lowersaxon]

Who has ever said that perfect competition is a valid representation of the real world of competition? Nobody. Its a frame of reference for the imperfections we face in reality.

[@nthperson]

A serious structural problem with the state-socialist command economy of the Soviet Union was the failure to account for rents associated with nature and natural assets with an inelastic supply. The result was that the land and natural resources of the Soviet nation were inefficiently (and environmentally destructively) exploited. It is only when rents are fully recognized and publicly collected that all natural assets to brought into development at highest, best use (subject, of course, to restrictions imposed under law and other regulations effectively enforced).

[@fahim102]

This point about the "land and natural resources of the Soviet nation were inefficiently (and environmentally destructively) exploited" is outright false. I would recommend you read Stalin's Environmentalism (scholarly article) by Stephen Brain ... or this video that heavily cites Brain's work: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l2KZlHupi5eop5Y

[@nthperson]

@@fahim102 This video is focused on just one aspect of environmental protection, that of the importance of forests to the natural systems at work. Not reading the full article, I cannot comment on other issues (e.g., air or ground water pollution associated with industrial production, mining and other activities. My point was very specific. Political economists (Marx included) understood that "rent," although unearned to individuals and private entities, must be collected by government in order to prevent underutilization of land and other natural assets. State-socialism does not allow competitive bidding to determine how such assets are allocated and utilized. A zero-waste and a zero-pollution requirement on producers in any society would have an important impact on the rent collected by government but would stimulate innovation and efficiency in the production processes that have important positive environmental effects.

[@lowersaxon]

No, not everyone is „happy“ with the outcome of the Walrasian solution of the market mechanism. His critique here is heavily biased by some superficial leftist polemics. For example, even if each and every hour of wage labour can be sold ( i.e. is effectively demanded ) there is no guarantee that the resulting wage rate for every kind of labour is sufficient for survival, given the resulting prices of consumer goods. Same can be true for certain pieces of land. Walras was well aware of those problems and wrote extensively on social problems.