Re: "Who Killed the Electric Car?" opens July 14th

In article <44B4BD4D.80704@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Phil Karn <pkarn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mark Atwood wrote:
Phil Karn <pkarn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
If someone can present
additional, *reliable* evidence that refutes my theory, I'd be happy
to change or abandon it.

I doubt that. Given that your understanding of both economics and the
basis of free markets is both strongly held and wrong, I suspect that
your strongly held opinions are not swayable as you describe them to
be.


Really? Please educate me on my misunderstanding of economics and free
markets.

So far as I can tell, you are using "free market" to describe the
standard perfect competition model. While it's true that the assumptions
of that model, or alternative unrealistic assumptions (such as zero
transaction costs or perfect discriminatory pricing), are needed to
prove a strong efficiency result--roughly speaking, that the market
produces an outcome that could not be improved by a perfectly
intellligent and all powerful central planner--it isn't true that
supporters of the free market base their support on that model on those
assumptions.

And, as I already pointed out, depletion of non-renewable resources
isn't an externality unless the resources are unowned.

I admit to having taken only one college course on the subject, mainly
because the material seemed at once a) utterly self-evident and b)
taught by people who seemed to be in the job because they couldn't do
anything else.

Then I can offer you a simple, indeed financially costless, way of
improving your understanding of the subject. My _Price Theory_ is webbed
at:

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Price_Theory/PThy_ToC.html

where it can be read for free.

A later, shorter, even less mathematical, and somewhat better written
version is available for purchase--the title is _Hidden Order_.
Obviously the math wouldn't be a problem for you, so I don't know which
version you would prefer. Both books are intended to teach what ought to
be learned in a price theory course--the theoretical core of
economics--while also showing how economics can be applied to a much
broader range of subjects than most people associate with the term.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
.

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