Economics Questions

Re: Man, Economy and State Errata

PWright — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 21:40:50 GMT

And while it is not exactly an error, I also found it incredibly confusing to refer to the items as Y-3, etc., since it makes it appear as if subtraction is implied. Subscripts would be much clearer.

Re: Man, Economy and State Errata

abskebabs — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 17:25:45 GMT

That is quite an annoying error in MES, and not the only one; I'm surprised more people haven't noticed, though to be fair I was too lazy to point it out either. I always interpret it as written in the text, so you're correct, X-4 should lie on the line below the one where it stands.

Re: Man, Economy and State Errata

Smiling Dave — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 08:35:45 GMT

I think you are right [and Izzy missed the boat. According to Izzy, x1 and y1 are equally important to the guy, which they are not]

Re: Man, Economy and State Errata

PWright — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 08:34:20 GMT

The rankings you quote are the ordinal rankings for each good individually. As noted by Rothbard, "horizontal lines are drawn through each end to demonstrate the relationship in the ranking of the ends of the two goods" (emphasis mine). This would seem to imply that ends which are on the same point on the y axis are ranked equivalently. Furthermore, if your interpretation were correct (unless I have misunderstood you), the next example in the book would not work since Y-2 would have a higher rank than X-3, but Rothbard states that Y-2 would be sacrificed.

Re: Man, Economy and State Errata

Isaac "Izzy" Marmolejo — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 08:21:12 GMT

no, its not incorrect.... look at both graphs carefully (Figure 4 Value Scales) Good X is the graph on the left, Good Y is the Graph on the right... now look at Y 3, the y axis, ends (ranked) is at 3... Now look at X 4, the end(ranked) to that is at 4.. Since Y3 has its ends ranked at 3, it is ranked higher than X4, which is ranked as 4.I would suggest using the study guide for MES by Robert Murphy if you are having troubles with the book, http://mises.org/books/messtudy.pdf..

Man, Economy and State Errata

PWright — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 07:11:53 GMT

I am reading the 2009 Scholar's Edition from LvMI, and I can not seem to figure out the discussion on page 30. Rothbard states that "the end Y-3 is ranked higher [...] than X-4," but in Figure 4, they both appear on the same horizontal line. The rest of his explanations match my understanding of the value scale, so I don't think the problem is my lack of understanding (though I am open to this possibility).

So, is this figure incorrect?

And, as a related question, is there an errata list for MES?