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From: vytl@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu (Edward Vytlacil)
Subject: Re: "Nobel" in Economics
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References: <VLADIMIR.95Nov19103813@sun71.mri.com> <48oiv8$gr3@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <48sf3v$k1u@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> <48uq3b$o6a@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 1995 02:44:50 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.lisp:20023 gnu.misc.discuss:24952 sci.econ:41342

In article <48uq3b$o6a@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>,
Bill Richter <richter@banach.math.purdue.edu> wrote:
>In article <48sf3v$k1u@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> claird@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (Cameron Laird) responds to my flame:
>> [...] the facts are not with him.  [...] I'll just point out that
>> Robert Fogel [...]  does not and did not advocate slavery.  This was
>> covered quite thoroughly in sci.econ (and the *New York Times* [...]
>
>Of course not, he only defended it economically.  
>

I believe that Fogel's main point was that slavery would not have
died out due to market forces but required non-market activity
to eradicate it.  And to thus emphasize that what is efficient is
not what is moral.  Of course, one frequently hears that Fogel
should not be given too much credit for emphasizing the distinction between
efficiency and morality since the distinction is so obvious.  After all,
how could one think otherwise, that something being efficient meant
that it was moral?  The previous post has, however, shown the
flaw in such an arguement.  At least some people seem not to have
grasped the distinction between efficiency and morality, to the
point where calling something efficient is interpreted as "defending it
economically".

Ed Vytlacil


