"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:54:21 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm, F.
George McDuffee quickly quoth:

On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:48:40 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

No, by "works" I mean that trade actually is done the way Ricardo's
theory
of comparative advantage says it should be done. I've never heard of one,
and I've asked some economists about it over the years. They never gave
me a
convincing answer.

I was researching a book and came across Schumacher's _Small is
Beautiful_. Ever heard of it/him? What's you guys' take on it?

He went the way of "appropriate technology." Kaput.

However, I saw his spectre raised recently in Bill McKibben's recent book,
_Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future_. I was
surprised anyone remembered him.

Here's an angular take on his ideas, which I've thought about in recent
years because I'm interested in both subjects: "Small is beautiful" ran up
against two things. The first was the New Trade Theory developed in the
'70s, which is based on economies of scale. The second is that the Japanese
proved New Trade Theory by flipping the idea that had been growing in the US
in the early-to-mid '70s, that computers and NC were going to produce highly
customized products and replace conventional mass production with
"one-at-a-time" mass production. The Japanese, in other words, killed "small
is beautiful." R.I.P.

It's still a valid idea. Along with appropriate technology, it could be
revived in competition with the capitalization ideas pushed by the IMF and
by theories of efficiency through globalization.

--
Ed Huntress