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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel...
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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 RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Guest)
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I am always glad to be informed when apparently nasty cases actually aren´t.
Thank you!
Bill,
Having seen dogmatic pedagogics, there has been a conscious path of struggle, liberation and acknowledging that had me embrace democratic approach in the deepest sense. From there I do appreciate and enjoy dedicated disput a lot, that will be elevating contents and neglect personal circumstance of vanity.
( Which asides and simultaneously will render squiggle of etikette almost needless, for with an obvious innocense of personal approach there being no need of emphasizing anymore. - In advanced discussion interlocutors [ <- had to look that up] can presuppose topic as main and personal matter as secondary.)
Furthermore, since my early twens I warship dispute as healthy glue and necessity for progress and common ground. It seem clear to me that everyone should and must argue; only in sober and contructive ways.
Hence, needless to say that I would certainly appreciate a gratified round with you, whome I estimate as friends anyway.
However, radical conditions will remain what they are, independently of how civilized we may be circling them in.
A reality that has fellow people eating dog poo and others earn millions with any splosh, is nothing that could be qualified in an intelligible way.
Disproportion, injust, recklessness, inhumanity and carelessness beyond certain dimensions cannot be put into relative terms.
There exists no need and no justification for anyone to become billionaire while others can´t ease primare demands.
- And the late attempt of some super rich to invest into questionable projects of charity, as laudable as it may be for now, would had been much better placed as not exploiting in the fist place, and letting affected fellow people handle their earnings to their own gusto.
What do you say about salt, sugar, spice, coffee, nicotine, alcohol ... any substance? Each in adequate measures?
Same recipe being true for profitting.
Extreme dose hurts. Inevitably.
If anyone´s raking in is too easy, precisely thus other´s hiring out will be too hard.
It would be helpful if behaved controverses would yield an understanding of at least that democracy means the concern of people´s basic equality ( that can only differ reasonably in rational measures); and that vice versa welcomed / officially legitimated discrepancy of drastic income proportions means tyranny. ( Howsoever sympathtetic or unintending of harm a face behind it may be; the effects remain. The individual stays due to scrupulously inform himself on the effects of his gross accumulation.)
From there it could be that we would stick to periphere topics of taste like music, meals or trends etc.
Which would neglect a paling of the blue planet, but sure can be done for a day or two.
Ruphus
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Date Nov. 23 2012 11:47:41
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Ruphus)
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I think you misread my comment, Ruphus. I was simply reinforcing Richard's point that there are many examples of individuals and companies that take care of their employees and do not exploit them in the employer-employee relationship. I am not defending billionaires, nor am I defending the examples of gross inequality in income and living conditions that surely do exist on this Earth, including in our relatively well-off Western countries. I have traveled and worked in enough areas of the world to have seen some truly nauseating examples of inequality in income and living standards.
Nevertheless, I do support the free-enterprise system and the right of private property. My main point (again, playing off Richard's comment) is while I recognize that the system is not perfect, the fact that companies and individuals make a profit in their businesses does not necessarily mean they are heartless exploiters of their employees, at least in the United States and most of what we call the West. Many have enabled their employees to pursue a very comfortable, middle-class life, which is what most people want.
When we eventually meet for a good dinner and a bottle (or two) of wine, we need not restrict our conversation to matters a taste only, Ruphus. I think we can discuss the fate of the planet as well. At least I would like to think we are intellectually mature enough to do so as two gentlemen with different viewpoints.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 23 2012 12:21:50
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Ruphus)
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...and my point all along has been that any mass society must be hierarchically organized, no matter what economic model is adopted. And that any hierarchical system not only can be corrupted, it will be corrupted to some extent. Those higher up in the hierarchy, who control more resources, will always end up better off than those further down, no matter what the law and the ideology happen to say. It has come about slower in Cuba than in any other case I am personally aware of, but it has come about and continues to progress.
The capitalist system has never really pretended to be based on morality, but moral people have operated within it, and even some evils have been rooted out over the past century and a half through the organized strength of unions and enlightened democratically enacted legislation.
Systems with a socialist ideology have committed some of the worst abuses.
From this I don't conclude that one system is morally better or worse than the other. Capitalism has been more fortunate in producing a better material standard of living for the majority, while exhibiting gross abuses at the highest and lowest levels of the hierarchy.
Communism quickly morphed into such a gross abuse of state ownership and central economic planning that we can draw no conclusion about socialism in practice. In my opinion, common ownership with truly democratic rule and values have never been implemented on a large scale. They exist only in theory.
I assert that no economic theory ever has, nor ever will account accurately enough for human behavior to prevent gross abuses if evil, stupid, or even uninformed people gain control.
For example, the framers of the U.S. Constitution were some of the greatest theorists of government yet to appear upon our benighted planet. Yet they never foresaw the rise of corporate power in the 19th century, nor the appearance of career politicians, television and the blatant expenditure of huge sums of money for both sides to broadcast bald faced lies and arrant nonsense, formulated well enough to hoax a significant fraction of the electorate. They were even surprised and disappointed when bald faced lies and arrant nonsense appeared in profusion during the second presidential election.
Human behavior is complex. Economic and political systems evolve. Radical changes in economic or political systems have most often resulted in violence and then the replacement of one system with another that was not much, if any better.
Our hope lies in working constantly to correct the abuses in whatever system we have at hand, and to work toward evolving a more just and equitable society.
For example, the British democratically instituted collectivization through the nationalization of large industries like coal, steel, aerospace, etc. But they abandoned the attempt when they didn't like how things were going. This doesn't imply that collectivization will never work. Just that the British attempt failed for a variety of reasons. People should be free to try it again if they are so inclined, and they should be free to abandon it if they don't like the way it is going, no matter what moral or economic theories may dictate.
The theories have never worked out well so far, including both capitalism and socialism.
RNJ
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Date Nov. 23 2012 22:45:12
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ruphus
Richard,
reading your discription makes me gladly taking on having misestimated Sen. Ramirez.
The shop´s through the roof pricings had me assuming on further premisses, and I must have been carried away finally, imagening how a blind like Manjon might have been treated. ( That is where I have a hyper soft spot since toddler times.)
Ruphus
The present Ramirez shop is not the descendent of Manuel Ramirez's operation. It is the descendant of the shop of Manuel's older brother, Jose Ramirez I. Upon Manuel's death, two of his three ofiiciales, Santos Hernandez and Domingo Esteso worked for Manuel's widow for a while, in the Spanish tradition. Then they set up shop on their own, and were two of the most distinguished makers of the 20th century.
My wife paid $650 for my Ramirez III blanca in 1967, in the USA, which I thought was good value for the money, having tried instruments by other makers at slightly higher and slightly lower USA prices.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Jose III's prices rose steadily, but those of Contreras, Manzanero and Bernabe kept pace.
When I bought my Contreras in 1991, the four shops' prices were still pretty well aligned. Vicente Camacho, the disciple of Manuel's third oficial Modesto Borreguero, may have been a little cheaper, but not enough to have been a consideration as I tried instruments from the five shops mentioned, plus Rozas next door but one to Contreras, and Manuel Rodriguez, Sr. in the calle Hortaleza.
I share your opinion that the present Jose Ramirez instruments are overpriced. They are good quality guitars, but I think you can get considerably better ones for a small fraction of the Ramirez price. It is a relatively small abuse of the capitalist system, compared to some of the enormities permitted by it. Overpriced luxury goods have been a feature of civilization since the existence of financial records.
Manuel set up shop in Madrid apart from his brother Jose I. This caused some friction which drove the two apart. But at this remove in time, and since Jose I, II, III, IV and Amalia never had anything whatsoever to do with Manuel's business practices, I don't think the present Ramirez business gives us any clue about Manuel's character.
RNJ
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Date Nov. 23 2012 23:28:02
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Ruphus)
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Demand can be anything from practical necessity, to manipulated arbitrary quantity.
The numb mantra according to which items were simply worth what demand will adduce, presents a shallow approach behind blinkers, fading out justice and social concern.
Tangible for pricing are the efforts to deliver. Counting them in will provide reasonable conditions.
Further congruent and self-evident is the fact that labour value is a property of the labouring person.
Let´s start laying aside a pretended obscureness about the latter mentioned human right, and put it through in all constitutions as the fundamental that it is.
Once enacted it will inherently put into perspective backgrounds and concerns of production, marketing and social conditions.
The obscurities then remaining to be discussed and assessed will be there, causing highly complex and partially extremely interesting discussion. The proprotions of divergence pending between discussed suggestions will however be nominal compared to todays detached arbitrary and often perverted conditions that defy and despise causality, deconstructivism and human being.
-
You know what the differenc between "method" and "system" is, right?
Methods base on arbitrary determination of one or several points, while elements of systems provide each other logically from ground to top.
From there given conditions are mistakenly referred to as "the system" we are living in.
My suggestion is to turn to systematical approach.
Whether you can imagine what anthropologiocally made us come about in the first place ( community of reason) or not aside: Let´s start tackling things logically from ground up.
One by one.
Weighing increments on a sincere base of: What is human right and just, what is reasonable, what is democratic.
That way adequacy will show.
These days we should be able to mobilize a distinctively higher ground of coherency and sincerity than foregone makers of amendments.
This time hopefull allowing for the better than during the making of the German constitution when delegates caused a 20 000 DM telephone bill with calling back their industrial clients.
It will be a long way until centuries of feudal / capitalist brainwash will be overcomed and common sense understand how crude a standard of "things are worth what will be paid for" is, the minute you learn to deconstruct and see the incoherency and injust behind decoupled takes, but it is the only way for billions to worthily live and share on this planet.
And while at it, a little anecdote from a week ago.
I was bitching about the incredible arbitrariness and absurdity of the local lawmaking when a lawyer chimed in.
He said that he was coming from a religious family and been pious when he entered university, believing in the just and systematical whereabouts of doctrine and local justice.
Insetad the inconsistency and injustice of the doctrine he had to discover during his studies made him a secular spirit.
Ruphus
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Date Nov. 24 2012 10:51:13
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
The numb mantra according to which items were simply worth what demand will adduce, presents a shallow approach behind blinkers, fading out justice and social concern.
Of course, the amount of labor that goes into the production of an item has something to do with the item's value, Ruphus. But the problem with the Labor Theory of Value is that it does not consider demand at all. In fact, demand will have a lot more to do with the product's value on the market than the amount of labor that goes into its production. Let's say, for example, that a shop produces square bicycle wheels, and each worker takes four hours to make a square bicycle wheel. If the worker is paid $10 per hour, the amount of labor that goes into each square wheel will be $40. If the owner of the shop adds a $10 profit on top of the labor cost, the square bicycle wheel will sell at retail for $50.
But lo and behold, the owner of the shop and his workers will find that no one buys their square bicycle wheels. They do not sell one, and they must come to the conclusion that their efforts (labor) and their product are worth exactly nothing, zero! Why is that? Of course, it is because square bicycle wheels are useless. There is no DEMAND for a square bicycle wheel.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 24 2012 11:15:36
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Ramon Amira)
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quote:
As you agree, to say that present day Ramirez guitars are overpriced is obviously a matter of opinion. And in any event, no matter what their prices are, how does that constitute “an abuse of the capitalist system?” Nobody is being compelled to buy a Ramirez guitar.
Agreed, Ramon. In fact, the pricing of the Ramirez guitars represents the capitalist system working as it should. As you state, "Nobody is being compelled to buy a Ramirez guitar." If there are buyers willing to pay the price, everyone is happy, the buyer, the seller, and no one is harmed. If, on the other hand, the Ramirez shop prices guitars so high that they do not sell, the capitalist system, through the mechanism of the market, will compel the Ramirez shop to lower the price to a point that their guitars sell. Otherwise, buyers will purchase from other makers whose prices are more reasonable. This is exactly as it should be.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 24 2012 13:13:04
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to XXX)
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quote:
YOu can sell something for any price in the world as long as you find somebody paying it. Doesnt mean the value of a thing changes.
Oh and by the way, if there is no demand for something... why should it be produced in the first place? If there really is no demand for it, it shouldnt and probably wouldnt be produced anyway.
I used an exaggerated example to illustrate the fact that demand is the primary determinant of value, and that you can put all the labor you want into a product, but if there is little or no demand for the product, no amount of labor will result in value.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 24 2012 13:18:28
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to XXX)
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quote:
No you basically confused value and price, and mixed up how a reasonable production would work. Its demand->production (labor)->value. In our system, values sometimes are dumped because they cant be sold at a profitable price, often enough even though there is demand for it (food for example).
You may personally value something greatly. For example, an heirloom you inherited from your grandfather (such as a pocket watch). To you, it has value for any number of reasons, including sentimental value. Yet, value, in terms of its worth, will be determined by the marketplace and the intersection of supply and demand. The marketplace (through the expression of demand) will determine what your grandfather's watch will sell for. In other words, its true value (apart from any sentimental value you attach to it) will be determined by demand, not by your sentiment, and not by the amount of labor that went into its original production.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 24 2012 13:46:02
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ruphus
The goods value is actually determined by the efforts to be brought about.
That is the intrinsic fact.
You need to think things through from scratch.
As long as you can´t but starting out from a given construct you willl not be on factual base and unable to judge an object in question.
Ruphus
I assume you have in mind some political and economic system "thought through from scratch." If so, do we still use money? If we use money, who decides what the value of an item is, and how much we pay for it?
This is a sincere question. I am puzzled about how this is to be done in a system "thought through from scratch."
As for thinking things through from scratch, I would point out a severe difficulty. For more than 2000 years, mathematicians, philosophers and scientists believed that Euclid's axioms of geometry represented absolute truth. They illustrated how the universe actually was. Many of these people studied the issue quite deeply, and all were in agreement. Euclid's geometry was absolute physical truth.
During the 19th century the realization emerged that other forms of geometry could exist logically. But this was just a mathematically interesting result, implying a technical condition about Euclid's axioms: the parallel postulate was independent of the other axioms.
But in the 20th century, along came Einstein, who demonstrated convincingly that on a macroscopic scale, space is non-Euclidean and four-dimensional. Euclid's axioms don't hold true in the physical universe. Einstein's conclusions have been confirmed by numerous experiments. No refutation of his ideas has survived close analysis.
What's the point? Mathematicians quickly grasped the 19th-century realization that non-Euclidean geometries could exist. Euclidean geometry is a relative sort of truth, not an absolute one. IF Euclid's axioms are true, then his theorems follow.
That's a pretty big "if".
Every field of mathematics and "hard" science now follows this paradigm. A set of axioms are set forth. They are logical statements about undefined terms. In Hilbert's famous little book on Euclidean geometry, the undefined terms are 'point', 'line' and 'between'. Euclid tried (unsuccessfully, as we now understand) to define 'point' and 'line', and took 'between' as something universally understood. Trying to define every term inevitably leads to circularity (look at any dictionary) or infinite regress, having to define a never ending series of terms.
Will I ever come to the point?
Yes. It is this. Science and mathematics have come to the realization that there is no scientifically discoverable absolute truth. Every mathematical system is based on a set of axioms and undefined terms. The logical consequences of the axioms are deduced, and in the case of science, compared to experimental fact. If the facts differ from the conclusions, it's time to modify the axioms, modify the identification of physical phenomena with the undefined terms, or scrap them and start over.
You insist on the absolute truth of the injustice of the "alienation of labor". That's where you want to start from scratch. Others insist that this is hogwash. The debate goes nowhere, not only because of this disagreement, but also because no actual economic and political system ever has worked the way theories say they should. All the 'scientific' models of economics are false, to a greater or lesser extent.
If you insist that the "alienation of labor" theory is true independent of scientific verification, then I say that comes dangerously near to religious faith. That goes for many "capitalist" ideas as well.
There are no unquestioned axioms of economic theory. Different models compete in the marketplace of ideas. Blindingly stupid caricatures of the various ideas are flogged in political election campaigns.
Meanwhile, in the "capitalist" economies, the rich get richer at the expense of all the rest, and in "socialist" economies, bureaucrats gradually or rapidly accumulate power at the expense of the masses.
"Thinking things through from scratch" seems to me not to have helped very much. People haven't figured out how to apply the scientific method to economics or politics. What we need to do is to try to find and correct injustices like the increasing inequality in incomes and power in existing systems. But that's politically difficult, given the barrage of bullsh1t which is foisted upon the public as political debate, and given the number of people, including politicians, who ardently believe one or another set of bullsh1t.
RNJ
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Date Nov. 24 2012 19:11:06
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Ramon Amira
Posts: 1025
Joined: Oct. 14 2009
From: New York City
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
quote:
ORIGINAL: Prominent Critic
There is nothing so wonderfully self-regulating as a true free market, one without price fixing or government intervention.
Ramon
In the USA the unregulated free market of the second half of the 19th century evolved itself into the rise of great monopolies. John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil drove essentially all competitors out of business. Cornelius Vanderbilt monopolized the railroad business, Andrew Carnegie totally dominated the production of steel.
The political backlash manifested itself in the antitrust laws that began to be legislated in the 1880s-1890s. President Theodore Roosevelt, himself from a wealthy family with firm capitalist values, sued 45 companies under the antitrust laws, significantly regulating the "free market".
Another of those divergences of practice from theory that I go on about.
RNJ
I stand on my statement that there is nothing so self-regulating as a free market. Read my post. I said “a true free market, one without price fixing or government intervention.” The monopolies you cite resulted in de facto price fixing. And at various times governments have imposed price controls. Both of these practices do not fit my given definition of a “true free market, one without price fixing or government intervention.”
The anti-trust laws that you allude to were designed to ensure genuine competition, thereby assuring a true free market of the kind that I defined. And in a true free market as I have described it, competition will always drive prices to their lowest possible point, hence my description of a true free market as self regulating.
Ramon
_____________________________
Classical and flamenco guitars from Spain Ramon Amira Guitars
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Date Nov. 24 2012 20:27:16
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to XXX)
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quote:
Thats why capitalism sucks so much. Things that could meet demand are not being produced, or produced stuff does not reach the person who demands it, because the price has to be high enough for the seller to profit from it. There is no intersection of supply and demand. There is tons of food and tons of people demanding it in vain.
The term "Use value" is essentially meaningless. Products that have a "use" are useful indeed. But there is no such thing as "use value" that is inherent in the product itself, and that is derived from the amount of labor that went into its production. This is where Marx went off the rails. In capitalism and the free market, The value of a product is set by the free market acting as a clearing house for both supply and demand, and that is what determines the equilibrium price of a product at any given time. The amount of Marx's "socially necessary" labor that went into production has nothing to do with it. Without demand for the product, it has no value on the market, and therefore no value.
Regarding your reference to food, that is an entirely different subject that requires a different framework for understanding it. Agriculture is the most politicized activity I can think of. There is so much government intervention in the form of subsidies and price supports that the ordinary rules of supply and demand do not apply. The European Union's Common Agricultural Policy is really a program for Britain and Germany to subsidize French farmers. In the United States, we, too, have various subsidies and price supports. Agriculture is the perfect example of government intervention completely distorting the free market. There are many reasons that people who need food are not getting it. For one thing, Europe has convinced African countries that they should not import genetically-modified grains, thus eliminating a whole class of food that could be made available. For another, inefficient agricultural production abounds in Africa and other areas. There are other reasons, but it would take an evening of discussion over a couple of bottles of wine to fully explore the issue.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 24 2012 20:47:09
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Ramon Amira
Posts: 1025
Joined: Oct. 14 2009
From: New York City
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
Throughout the history of large scale markets, at least once in a human lifetime the whole thing goes off the rails and sows severe inconvenience, disaster or catastrophe in its wake. When this happens we say what the farmer said when his cow died, "My, my! She never did that before!"
By your standard of wonderful self-regulation, we have never had a free market. So how can we say how one would behave?
RNJ
Richard –
I think there’s a problem of semantics here, in that “regulating” has different meanings. You are using it to describe laws and rules etc. that are imposed to “regulate” the conduct of the market.
That’s not what I meant when I said a true free market is self-regulating. What I was referring to is what happens to prices in a true free market, one without the kind of regulation that you are referring to. What I meant was that competition “regulates” the prices down to their lowest point, as I said. In other words, I meant “self-adjusting” with respect to prices. I did not mean “self-governing,” the other use of “regulating.”
But apart from that there are plenty of examples of free markets. Since this thread started about Ramirez guitars, let’s use that. I am a dealer for Jose Ramirez guitars. There are numerous other Ramirez dealers. We all pay the same price to buy our Ramirez guitars from the distributor. We are all free to sell them at any price we choose to – a 500% markup, or even at a loss.
Now I am free to choose to sell a $2000 MSRP Ramirez for $4000, but if my competition is charging $2000 I won’t be selling very many guitars. On the other hand if I decide to sell them for $500 I will be inundated with orders, but I will lose a lot of money.
So I have to price the guitar accordingly. Now – I constantly get price inquiries where I am informed that so and so is selling the same guitar for less than I am. So I lower my price to less than that to get the sale. So and so naturally learns of my price from the buyer, and lowers his to less than mine. Other dealers are frequently involved by the buyer, wisely taking advantage of competition, as he should.
The process goes on and the price keeps going down until only one dealer is left willing to sell it at some price that no other dealer is willing to meet. This is a perfect example of what happens in a free market. The dealers have not acted in deference to or in accord with any regulations, and are under no constraints, laws, rules, or “regulations” to lower their prices, but they do so in hopes of getting the sale. The market has self-regulated the price to its lowest point. That’s what I meant.
Ramon
_____________________________
Classical and flamenco guitars from Spain Ramon Amira Guitars
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Date Nov. 25 2012 3:19:41
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Ramon Amira)
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Your sense of the word "regulation" is precisely what I was addressing in the post you quote. As an engineer I have designed, analyzed and diagnosed many self-regulating systems. I used the household thermostat as a familiar example.
No self respecting "wonderfully self-regulating system" would exhibit the disastrously chaotic behavior that large scale markets have throughout the course of their history.
In your example of Ramirez guitar dealers, the market determines your profit margin, not the price. The minimum price is set by Ramirez and your cost of doing business.
I love my '67 Ramirez 1a blanca, but I would never buy a current top of the line Ramirez flamenca. In my opinion better guitars are available at a cheaper price. I love my '73 Romanillos spruce/Indian, but I wouldn't buy a new one from Liam. The price of mine is high because it's a collector's item. As good or better guitars are available at a cheaper price. In neither case does the "free market" get the guitar buyer the best bang for his buck in musical utility.
Of course, it may be argued that the market sets the price that Ramirez, Conde and Romanillos can charge, taking into account both their value as musical instruments, and whatever value the buyer may perceive from the name. People in most countries are fairly free to spend their money as they like, once they have paid their taxes and other obligations. But I am quite dubious of the claim that the "free market" gets the buyer the best value for his money. But of course the claim of "best value" is a tautology if you define the value of an item as its market price.
Permit me to tell a little story of confusion over price and value. A Marshallese friend bought a little boat from an American, promising to make monthly payments. A difficulty he faced was cultural. He had a good job, but he never had any cash. Strong cultural values dictated that on payday he should cash his check and give the money to his wife, who distributed most of it to a large and largely unemployed extended family. She kept the rest for household expenses.
My friend thought the extended family would see the utility of the boat, which he freely shared, and would agree to him keeping the cash to make the payments. Not so. Since my friend controlled the use of the boat, they saw it as a personal possession, and begrudged him the money.
Marshallese society is matrilineal, but not matriarchal. Land and titles of nobility are inherited in the female line. The sale of land is extremely rare. But men exercise considerable political power. As far as I could puzzle it out in my 18 1/2 years in the Marshall Islands, family finances were managed by consensus of the bwij, the set of mature sisters, grandmothers and aunts who were the nucleus of the extended family.
My friend thought he had found a solution, but not so. The seller repossessed the boat. My friend asked me, "Jernigan, why did John H. take my boat back?"
"The story I heard was that you were not making the payments."
"Then I want my lobsters back!"
My friend had put an otherwise unemployed cousin to work using the boat to catch lobsters, which he gave to John H. every month in lieu of money. The lobsters were probably worth twice the monthly payments due, but lobsters were so rare there was no trade in them, and there was no established market price for them. No doubt John H. did not fancy himself as a lobster dealer. But he and his family happily ate them, a rare delicacy.
"Why did John H. take my boat, when I gave him lobsters every month?"
I mulled it over a bit. "I suppose, my friend, it was because there was no place in John H.'s checkbook to write down 'lobsters'."
The lobsters were definitely valuable, but they had no established market price, due to their rarity. Tuna, wahoo, mahi-mahi and ranibow runner were plentiful and went for fairly well established prices, though a lot were 'given away' by American sport fishermen. However, if you received fish when your friends caught more than they could eat, you had better return the favor or get cut off.
Value and market price are not the same thing in my book. Flamenco guitarists don't make as much money as successful concert pianists, but I like some flamenco guitarists better than I like some successful concert pianists.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against setting the price of things via the market. It appears to me to be better than any other scheme that's been tried. But I am extremely dubious of claims that any existing market is either free of external regulation, efficient, or in any other sense wondefully virtuous.
I make these remarks based on a lifetime as an engineer, responsible for many competitive bids and proposals, as a director of an employee owned company, and as the owner of my own business for several years--a moderately successful career in a market economy.
RNJ
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Date Nov. 25 2012 4:51:53
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Ramon Amira
Posts: 1025
Joined: Oct. 14 2009
From: New York City
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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Well, I’ve made the distinction clear as day, but you insist on conflating the two different meanings of “regulate,” so I just can’t spend any more time on this. If a market is free then it will self adjust, or "self-regulate" prices to their lowest point. The point is not even arguable, as it is illustrated all around us in countless different markets where competition drives down prices. Not one single thing you have said in any way refutes that.
quote:
In your example of Ramirez guitar dealers, the market determines your profit margin, not the price. The minimum price is set by Ramirez and your cost of doing business.
One hundred percent wrong. Neither Ramirez nor any other guitar manufacturer sets a minimum price, nor can they. I guess you didn't read my post too well, where I said clearly that I am free to sell the guitar for any price I choose, including at a loss, or for one cent. So this is in fact a free market, and is the essence of a free market, as it fosters competition, which drives down prices.
So contrary to your assertion above, the market - exactly as in my Ramirez example - does in fact set the price, which was my original point.
As I said, enough of this. I won't be posting on this thread any more - I have to go to a meeting of Ramirez dealers to work out some price fixing on the 125 Anos.
Ramon
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Classical and flamenco guitars from Spain Ramon Amira Guitars
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Date Nov. 25 2012 5:49:03
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XXX
Posts: 4400
Joined: Apr. 14 2005
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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THings dont have a use by nature. It takes human mind and labor to create things (either from nature itself or artificially) of use. Useful hence valuable. Because this process takes time it makes sense economically to associate time and use in the term use value and average socially neccessary labor. The relation here would be between time and use. The reason why you cannot imagine such a thing is because for you value needs to be connected to property and trade. BUt these categories, ie property, are in fact the ones that do not exist in the products. It is something that humans impose on the things. Use value is nowhere but within a given product.
About food, that was one of millions of examples, but the most obvious one, to show that if a system is able and has the productivity to fly to the moon, produce luxury goods and even produce food in huge amounts, yet still not being able to provide a "supply" of this most basic (!) need for more or less everyone, then its not just a nuisance. If in 150 years of capitalism the most basic needs of humans cant be satisfied, although all neccessary means are available, then i conclude, that satisfying those needs was never the purpose. And indeed, it was just accumulation that was the purpose, and the use value of products was just a vehicle to get the real interesting thing, ie exchange value. Guys like Adam Smith wanted to show that there is accumulation, but somehow the supply still works. Because they wanted to justify the system. But its more interesting to look at how the supply appears in capitalism: it is only the vehicle, a means to get exchange value.
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Фламенко
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Date Nov. 25 2012 8:54:39
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