Talk:Marginalism

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Contents 1 Very Bad Things 1.1 Update 2 Concepts section 3 Further revisions 4 Criticism section 5 Spelling of rôle/role 6 Marginalism as a Reaction to Marxism 7 Markèd 8 former or latter? 9 Explanation 10 This is too technical

[edit] Very Bad Things

There are a number of things wrong with this article. I'm going to note three of them:

• Empty or incorrect equation of utility with rational self-interest.

  If we define “self-interest” simply as whatever one seeks, then “pursuit of self-interest” is synonymous with “pursuit of the pursued” — formally empty, and misleading because presumed by most readers to have content.

  On the other hand, if by “self-interest” we mean something along the lines of the model used by Adam Smith in his Inquiry in the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, then a presumption of self-interest is not presumed by marginalism per se. The logic of marginalism holds for any individual who can somewhat order his or her interests. If Mary's priorities are

  1. Feed baby.
  2. Feed hubby.
  3. Feed neighbor's cat.
  4. Feed self.

  there is still diminishing marginal usefulness of means.

  I'm well-aware that we can find economists who mistakenly declare that utility necessarily is measured by self-interest. We can find someone making mistaken declarations about virtually any point of economic theory. In the case of this particular mistake, its origins lie partly in the strong influence that Utilitarians had on British economist, but mostly in just not recognizing the difference between an essential attribute and an accidental attribute. (One would not declare that breathing were a feature of marginalism, even though every known marginalist was also a breather.)

• Confusion about the size of a marginal change.

  Under the standard presumptions of neo-classical economics, goods and services are continuously divisible. Thus, marginal changes are small. But those presumptions are not part of marginalism proper. When Böhm-Bawerk offered his famous example of the farmer with five sacks of grain, the allocation is not made grain-by-grain, but sack-by-sack. The logic of marginal utility is that whatever the size of the revelant increase or decrease, the valuation is that of the change that it induces (eg survival or death of the parrots). One doesn't observe Carl Menger attempting to use the differential calculus to engage in marginal analysis!

• Confusion about the implications and historical effects of the alleged “Weber-Fechner law of sensation”.

  Ernst Heinrich Weber's empirical results indicated that to go from one detectable change to another, there had to be ever-increasing levels of stimulus. Fechner, presuming that sensation was quantified and that discernable changes in stimuli corresponded to equal changes in sensation, arrived at a logarithmic relation. Now:

  1. Even if we assume that sensation is a good or service, and so that increases in sensation are improvements, this would be nothing more than a special case of diminishing marginal productivity, no more suggestive that previously recognized cases!
  2. Is blue better than red or than green? The differences amongst colors are exactly the sort of differences in sensation that Weber found.

  The only reference to Weber or Fechner that I've found in the work of any 19th Century marginalist appears in Edgeworth's Mathematical Psychics (p 62 in the original), wherein he referenced Fechner in defense of the (spurious) claim that satisfaction were introspectively measurable. Edgeworth was a second-generation British marginalist, not an Austrian. The third-generation Austrian marginalist Mises (Nationalökonomie pp 92-94 and Human Action 1ed pp 125-7) was harshly critical of the confusion of Fechnerian notions with marginal utility, as had been the German Max Weber (Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre pp 149 & 372).

—SlamDiego 13:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update

I have effected changes as per the above discussion.

I have also provided the beginnings of a real historical discussion. However, that discussion was written with just marginal utility in mind, and needs coverage of marginal physical productivity. Also, I moved the whole historical section to after the concepts section, for obvious reasons.

The concepts section is in terrible need of reform. I've not closely looked at the schools-of-thought section; I dread to do so. —SlamDiego_←T 04:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Concepts section

I have effected a major reworking of the “concepts” section. (Amongst other things, it now actually explains the concept of the margin — rather a proper thing for an article on marginalism.) Since the section now has a discussion of the concept of marginal utility, I removed that from the section on value theory. that section is clearly in need of work, which I may effect at some point in the very near future. SlamDiego_←T 07:07, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further revisions

Okay, I've extensively revised section but the “...and Schools of Thought” section and the “Criticism” section. The former consists of things which are either redundant, or need to be moved to the “Criticism” section, and I may do that in the near future.

The “History” section remains, despite its length, in need of expansion, because it was written as a history of marginal utility theory per se. —SlamDiego_←T 14:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism section

The Criticism section now consists mainly of responses to the original piece, most of which has been deleted. This is not only biased; it's stupid. Can everyone refrain from using the article as a chatroom.--Jack Upland 21:04, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The Criticisms section mainly consists of “Marxist responses to marginalism”. The passage by Marx himself could probably be happily deleted. Everything else (including matter outside of that subsection) consists of very standard criticisms for which cited sources are or trivially can be given.

There is a very great difference between unbiased presentation and presentation that attempts to keep a school from shooting itself in the foot. The fact that the criticisms of Mandel and of Dobb looked less weak when the rest of the article was primarily written by economists manque, but now look rather ineffectual, doesn't change the fact that those criticisms are standard Marxist criticisms.

—SlamDiego_←T 22:01, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The assertion that the critisms are 'standard Marxist criticisms' is irrelevant. Any theory which can't handle critique - from whatever source - is very weak. I was actually referring to the first section (prior to the Marx quote) which is dominated by an argument as to why any criticism is invalid. This in fact invalidates the need for the section as a whole - that is, if you take it at face value. Why not have a 'Criticism' section that gets stuck into Marginalism and leave it to stand and fall on its own? As it stands, the supporters of Marginalism are deleting arguments they don't agree with.--Jack Upland 07:40, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a debates BBS operating according to some “Fairness Doctrine” under which each party gets to put in a section advertising its POV which is then untouched by rival parties. If there is a note-worthy reply to a criticism of anything (marginalism or whatever), then the reply is to be included for being noteworthy.

Your characterization of what has happened to this article is quite mistaken. First, until recently, this article had been almost entirely the work of non-economists, who didn't understand marginalism. Some of them thought of themselves as supporters, and some of them thought of themselves as opponents, but the fact remained that they presented various cartoony versions. The bulk of the article now presents the actual content of marginalism and a summary of the actual history of its development (excepting, as noted elsewhere, that some discussion is need of the development of idea of MPP).

The “Criticism” section, accordingly, used to contain not merely criticism of marginalism, but active misrepresentations of it and of one of the schools of marginalism. I've not tracked the whole history of this article (that really wouldn't be my responsibility), but I'm quite willing to explain exactly why I deleted anything that I deleted. For example, the section said

Marginalism has been criticised for being extremely abstract, with even supporters of the concept describing "marginal utility" as "unobservable, unmeasurable and untestable".[1]

But if one followed the link then one found that the quote was in fact from the New School, who are critics, not supporters. So now the sentence reads:

Marginalism has been criticised for being extremely abstract, as “unobservable, unmeasurable and untestable”.^[1]

And the section declared

In its most extreme Austrian version, marginalism denies that an objective, cost-based component exists at all. Rather, the Austrians argue that costs of production are merely the manifestations of individual preferences for labor vs. leisure and saving vs. consumption.

which

1. grossly misrepresents the actual Austrian School position
2. was phrased to the effect that critics claim that this is the Austrian School position, but merely presents it as indeed the position, to which critics then object. (And I really don't think that this article needs to have a cartoony misrepresentation of the Austrian School position followed by an honest and competent representation. If such a thing had a place in Wikipedia, it would be in the article on the Austrian school.)

And, while I was cleaning-out that sort of rot, I was also adding some significant criticisms:

However, observed patterns of choice in test situations often seem not to correspond to an ordering, and the expected utility hypothesis has been falsified as description. (See the article on behavior economics, and perhaps especially that on the Ellsberg paradox or that on the Allais problem.)

—SlamDiego_←T 21:45, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

The fact remains, however many contending schools you can cite, the "Criticism" section contains mostly arguments supporting marginalism. Which is, I would suggest, obviously biased.--Jack Upland 08:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

As I've said, Wikipedia doesn't have a “equal time” protocol. And it isn't that the section contains mostly arguments supporting marginalism; it is that the standard responses are effective against the standard criticisms. A pity for the critics, eh? —SlamDiego_←T 12:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The issue isn't about "equal time" - the issue is whether a section of "criticism" should exist and if it does, whether it should contain criticism. You seem to believe that it should exist, but maintain it should be dominated by comments supportive of marginalism. Why have it at all?--Jack Upland 09:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The issue shouldn't have been about “equal time”, but you'd made it so by complaining “the ‘Criticism’ section contains mostly arguments supporting marginalism”. The Criticism section should exist because there are standard and frequently encountered criticisms; and, likewise, the standard and frequently encountered replies should be noted. You problem is that you'd like any Criticism section to diminish marginalism, but you don't see the present section as doing this. —SlamDiego_←T 04:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I'd like the Criticism section to contain criticism.--Jack Upland 11:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Were that so, then you'd be happy, as it does contain criticism. —SlamDiego_←T 23:50, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Not much! Besides the lead para which I was concentrating my fire on, the "Marxist response" is classed under Criticism, but criticism is mixed up with Marxoid adaptation to Marginalism. So the whole segment is quite question-begging.--Jack Upland 23:12, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Earlier, when I thought that you intended to “concentrat[e your] fire” on that section, you rerouted discussion to the earlier portion; so it seems more that you're just shooting desperately. Now, get a decent dictionary, and look up the word “criticism”; it isn't simply confined to attack. The word “criticism” and the term “critical response” are synonymous. A Marxism that attempts to reform itself in response to the results of its critical response has still engaged in criticism. Further, what is explicit in the discussion of Marxist responses that attempted to accept the logic of marginalism was that they claimed that the operation of that logic didn't have the scope of Marxist value theory. One could just state that baldly, leaving the reader to guess how these Marxists attempted a synthesis, or do as the article presently does and point in the direction of that synthesis — the “mix[ing] up” about which you complain. —SlamDiego_←T 03:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I must admit when I first responded to the changes in the 'Criticism' section I didn't notice that part of it had been shifted to the 'Marxist response' section. The problem with this is that the 'Marxist response' is not all criticism - or rather some of it is much less critical of Marginalism. Of course, the word 'criticism' can cover a wide field, but I think in this context we want to give the readers alternatives not watered down imitations.--Jack Upland 10:28, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

No, the article isn't supposed to present dramatic debate; it's supposed to give the reader a sense of the range of views. The section should neither champion the most primitive Marxists nor those who've tried to hold onto some aspects of it while accepting the insights of marginalism. From my own perspective, it would be a very fine thing if no Marxists had sought a synthesis (though my reasons for thinking this very fine would be quite different from those of an old skool Marxist); but the fact is that some very influential thinkers have attempted synthesis and the reader is entitled to be informed. —SlamDiego_←T 01:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the point is that the criticism section should include criticism, not a 'me too' chorus.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

You are recycling already refuted claims. As previously noted, “criticism” isn't synonymous with “attack”. The function of Criticism sections isn't to appease editors who wish to attack the subject. Readers are best served by exposure both to old skool Marxists and to the synthesizers. —SlamDiego_←T 04:46, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Fine, but you're muddying the waters. Opponents are mixed up with adaptors.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not that I am muddying the waters; it's that the water was-and-remains muddied by the adapters. Certainly a cleaner story of the Marxist response would omit them, but a truthful story cannot. —SlamDiego_←T 11:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I can't "assume good faith" in this case. It's too convenient for Marginalistas such as yourself to rope in a few woolly headed Marxoid sheep to obscure the actual negative criticism with an inconclusive and uninteresting series of excuses for not having a position.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

In other words, having used various arguments that didn't actually work, and then used them again even though they didn't work, you're just going to attack me on a personal level. Well, that doesn't much matter. The point will remain that you don't have a case for erasing discussion of the Marxists whom you'd like to go away. As to what you call “the actual negative criticism”, that from old-skool Marxists is simply so ineffectual that it wouldn't worry me in any context in which marginalism had been well explained, which is part of the reason that I wish that the synthesizers had never achieved notability — they're kinda like the more sophisticated Biblical fundamentalists. —SlamDiego_←T 10:01, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's personal criticism. And I'm not saying that the discussion of "Marxist Marginalists" should be deleted - just that they should be separated from the section of those who actually disagree with Marginalism (and whether or not this is called "criticism" is hardly relevant.)--Jack Upland (talk) 08:57, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The question of whether I am acting in good faith is nothing other than personal criticism. Again: We walked through various of your arguments more than once, and when they failed more than once, you turned to ad hominem. *shrug*. —SlamDiego_←T 00:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it personal or ad hominem as it deals with the arguments publicly advanced here. I think any unbiased person can see the issue is muddied when the "Criticism" section includes theorists you yourself call "adapters". I don't think most people would see adaptation as criticism. I think the article could be clearer on this, but this is not advocating "erasing" opinions represented in the article. I have edited on the basis of the discussions here. As I have not deleted any argument I don't think you can have any valid objection.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:43, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

IT's a complete nonsequitur to claim that it's not ad hominem because it deals with arguments advanced here. Since your arguments here, including your ad hominem have been exploded, editing based on arguments here is plainly unwarranted. I'll look at yoir edits and see if they have merit on some other basis, otherwise I'll revert them as (inept) POV-pushing. —SlamDiego_←T 10:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, now the one reversion that actually needs explanation here is the reference to the Bohr model. The fact is that some neoclassical economists do two things: teach micro in terms of British-style marginal utility (which neoclassicals have great conceptual trouble generalizing to the non-quantitative utility of the Austrian School), and then “explain” that the theory is old-fashioned an ultimately incorrect — so that British-style utility is used as a pædogogical device in perfect analogy to the Bohr model. The reader doesn't really need a digression on neoclassical pædogogy, but she deserves to have the ground swept a little before her.

Now, you've tried to separate adapters from old-skool Marxists, but you have Hilferding conflated with the latter. The fact is that it's only a slight caricature to claim that Hilferding attacks Böhm-Bawerk for mistaking Marx for an economist, rather than reading Marx as writing about other, sociological aspects.

Part of the problem of separating adapters from old-skool Marxists is that they don't have a clean chronological order to them (some of the first defenders being adapters). Another part if the problem is that it isn't clear how much some authors are adapters (rather than fundamentalists). Sowell, for example, when he was a Marxist (of good reputation, at that time, amongst Marxists), insisted that Marx in fact didn't subscribe to a labor-tehory of value. Sowell (rightly or wrongly) and his supporters would have rejected any claim that he was an adapter. —SlamDiego_←T 11:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

My reorganisation was based on information already in the article, including that on Hilferding. If there is confusion or misrepresentation, then it was already there. Hopefully, the reorganisation makes things a bit clearer and less repetitive. Also I think the Marginalism and Marxism section could probably just be deleted as it doesn't really add much.

You seem to be attached to the Bohr analogy, but it only works if you have an in-depth knowledge of physics, and the point being made isn't particularly important anyway.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:56, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

No, there was no misrepresentation of Hilferding. He was presented in the historical section as the first Marxist respondent to von Böhm-Bawerk, which indeed he was. The problem here is that you aren't well versed in the history here, but are rewriting an essentially historical section because it conflicts with your POV. Since you evidently don't know how to set things right, I'll try to do so.

The historical section properly addresses the oft-repeated myth that the Marginalist Revolution was begun in response to Marx. As part of its task in addressing that myth, it also acknowledges the historical case for Marginalism having become more popular qua response to Marx.

You seem to confuse a high school exposure to physics (or to chemistry) with an in-depth knowledge. (Meanwhile, the reader who hasn't had that high school exposure could, if concerned, just follow the link.) —SlamDiego_←T 05:29, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I seem to remember you preaching against personal attacks??? I have a high-school exposure to physics several years ago and your example conveys nothing to me. What relevance does it have to the article? Why should anyone labour to understand your name-dropping?

And no I wasn't attempting to slant the article in moving the reference to Hilfering but merely to group all the Marxist criticisms together. To say, as the article does, that there were only a few Marxist "replies" to marginalism, and then later have a Marxist attacks/adaptations section is contradictory and verbose.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:40, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Ian Steedman has a paper documenting that there was a lot more Marxist English-language responses to marginalism in the early 20th century or late 19th century than mentioned here. And I do not understand what distinction - probably original research - SlamDiego makes between marginalism and neoclassical economics. -- Anonymous 151.190.254.108 (talk) 17:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

The article doesn't claim that there were only two replies, nor does it claim that there were “Only a few” ever. Rather, an editor who was sympathetic to Marxism modified the sentence to say that “Only a few” replies were made during the Marginalist Revolution, apparently to suggest that the lack of an effective reply stemmed from indifference. Frankly, even including the Bukharin reference was stretching it.

There's not much more unscholarly that conjecturally labelling something “original research”. The first known appearance of the term “neo-classical” (to label economic thought) is in “The Preconceptions of Economic Science” (18991900), where Veblen specifically uses it to distinguish Marshallian economists from Austrian School economists. The notion that neo-classical economics somehow swept-up all the insights of marginalist economics is a grossly mistaken neo-classical conceit, and members of the Austrian School have long resisted the conflation. —SlamDiego_←T 00:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Since, obviously, I wouldn't have known what you took in high-school, your insistence that I am attacking you personally for not being an able student is ridiculous. And I'm not suggesting that anyone should labor to learn about the Bohr model; I am noting that people with a high-school exposure to physics (who retain the content of that exposure) will recognize that the model is a useful approximation yet false (which is how many neoclassical economists (mis)characterize(d) MU theory), and that those who don't recognize the Bohr reference yet care about it can follow the link. Those who don't recognize it and don't care are free to ignore it.

The references to Hilfering didn't present his criticism of von Boehm-Bawerk (nor did it present von Boehm-Bawerk's criticism of Marx), so the claim that you were just grouping the criticisms together is silly.

No, there is no contradiction in claiming that there were few Marxist replies during the tiem that marginalism was becoming the mainstream, and later having a section discussing those replies and those that came after marginalism had become mainstream (which later criticism have had virtually no effect on the development of marginalism). First, “few” and “unimportant” are not synomyms. (Ronald Harry Coase published few essays on economic subjects.) And, rather obviously, criticism can be late(r) and yet important. Now, that also doesn't mean that the section on Marxist criticism doesn't run over-long, but (even setting aside your ill-considered transplant) you've done nothing but to make it run longer still! The only contradiction here is yours. —SlamDiego_←T 00:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

It is easy to find references for the theory that marginalism was embraced by the mainstream because it provided a reply to Marx which Classical economics could not. The reference that I've selected is, in fact, by a pair of anti-marginalists. The theory, you see, isn't itself particularly pro- or anti-marginalist, and speaks to Marxism as having a significance in the history of thought that contemporary neo-classical pseudo-historians would deny it. If you weren't viewing the whole section throughly hugely distorted lenses, you wouldn't be seeking to censor it. —SlamDiego_←T 05:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not trying to censor the article. I'm just suggesting it be abbreviated. It can't include everything. I don't think the piece about Marxism and the emergence of Marxism lends much to the article. For that matter the details about Dobb could also be shortened. You seem to see the article as your private work of scholarship which it wasn't.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

It is absurd to suggest that you used the {{fact}} tag to suggest that a passage was superfluous; you're simply grasping for excuses to delete. It is of interest why marginalism began moving into the mainstream when it did, as opposed to more quickly after its earlier presentations; hence the discussion of theories (reasonable and unreasonable) introduced by anti-marginalists that treat the creation of marginalism and the embrace of marginalism by the mainstream as response to Marxism. As to shortening the passages on Dobb, well, perhaps, though I'm inclined to feel that it would be better to remove the quotation of Marx (which, rather than being relevant to marginalism per se, merely shows that he failed to understand supply and demand as two equations that jointly solved two unknowns; no one had proposed that supply or demand simply existed ex nihilo). In any case, the inclusion of Dobb &alii nicely illustrates that I don't treat the article as a private work; if it were such, then the Marxist criticism would barely be mentioned as I would have regarded it as too incompetent to be interesting; but other editors have felt a need for more lengthy discourse, so I am content merely to see that it be correct. —SlamDiego_←T 03:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree the Marx quote is long and rather irrelevant. (Still, I think he understood supply and demand perfectly - as did Adam Smith. I'm not sure how you construe them as simultaneous equations. Perhaps you could explain on my talk page, if not here.) The "fact" tag does suggest a passage is superfluous when it requests a citation for the statement that anchors it. PS I think your Bohr example reeks of pomposity.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:25, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see what incentive I have for giving you quasi-private lessons on supply and demand (or quasi-private lessons on anything else, for that matter). No, the purpose of the {{fact}} tag is to request substantiation; providing subtantiation of a superfluous statement would render it no less superfluous. Indeed, you could not have punted to the claim of superfluity if substantiation would somehow show the claim not superfluous. PS: I think that your reaction to the Bohr analogy is just sad. —SlamDiego_←T 10:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't requesting "lessons", but I was conscious that we shouldn't clog up this page with debates that aren't particularly relevant. My point with the fact tag is to remove things which are put in at the whim of individual contributors. (As is your boring Bohr analogy - but let's let it rest...)--Jack Upland (talk) 10:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

There's a lot that you ought to let rest. “Perhaps you could explain on my talk page, if not here.” is not somehow a way of saying “Let's not discuss it here.” (It isn't even equivalent to “Perhaps you could explain on my talk page, but not here.”) The function of the {{fact}} tag is not to label something as caprice. —SlamDiego_←T 12:09, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The main reason I should let things rest is that you refuse to accept any criticism of your approach. There's no point in discussion.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

No, there's just no point in discussion if you are going to present such ill-formed arguments. I'm disinclined to give a pass to a bad argument even when it's not directed at something with which I've had a previous involvement. —SlamDiego_←T 11:30, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, maybe I present bad arguments, but you (in the discussion above) refuse to present arguments at all, instead you resort to pedantic point-scoring. I'd like to know why you think Marx didn't understand supply and demand, and I'm sure our listeners would too.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not “pedantic point-scoring” to point out that an argument is ill-formed and how it is ill-formed. In some cases, there simply wouldn't be a well-formed argument plausibly contructed from the ruins of your ill-formed argument; in other cases, there would be many possible arguments, and it would be absurd to expect anyone to chase after all of these possibilities and refute each in-turn.

In your request now that I explain here how Marx's comment shows that he didn't understand supply-and-demand, you've managed to contradict yourself yet again. You declare that there's no point in discussion, then ask me to discuss things with you. As to “our listeners”, I'm not sure that we have any interested listeners at this stage, but perhaps there are (or will be) some.

It is important to understand the distinction between what economists call “demand” and “quantity demanded”, and the analogous concepts called “supply” and “quantity supplied”. Supply and demand are not one-dimensional, nor are they each single points; they are sets of points (which can alternately be conceptualized as schedules or as equations) coördinating prices and quantities. Each set maps from prices to quantities, so that for any given price we know (given demand) how much some parties, jointly, would be seeking to buy, and (given supply) how much other parties would be seeking to sell. For a given price, there is an associated quantity demanded, and an associated quantity supplied.

If we have a system of two distinct equations, each in the same two variables, then the intersection of those two equations determines the values that they two variables will take. If we have an explanation for each of the equations, then we have an explanation for the resulting values of the variables. The equations don't “cease to explain anything” by virtue of having an intersection; that intersection per se is part of the explanation. If we have

Demand

price	quantity
$0	1000000
$1	40
$2	15
$3	4
$4	1
$5	0

Supply

price	quantity
$0	0
$1	1
$2	3
$3	4
$4	5
$5	6

The fact that at $3 quantity demanded equals quantity supplied doesn't mean that “supply and demand […] cease to explain anything, do not affect market-values, and therefore leave us so much more in the dark about the reasons why the market-value is expressed in just this sum of money and no other”.

Hypothetically, one might not have an explanation for supply and for demand, in which case the two equations, being themselves unexplained, wouldn't be a satisfactory explanation; however, that hypothetical is entirely independent of whether “they balance one another”. Either Marx is himself utterly confused, or he is playing sophist. It isn't simply that he's using the terms “supply” and “demand” as if they refer simply to quantity supplied and to quantity demanded, but that he has failed to recognize or to acknowledge that the explanation is in reference to such schedules (whatever terminology he might have chosen to use). —SlamDiego_←T 11:58, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx, for example, had a concept of supply and demand that differed from the concept put forward by the marginalists. (I deliberately left J. S. Mill off my list.) It is a matter of debate in the literature whether extending classical or neoclassical economics is more worthwhile nowadays. Pierangelo Garegnani and Luigi Pasinetti are examples of two economists that advocate a revival of classical/Marxist economics. -- RLV 209.217.195.103 (talk) 23:12, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Above, I already headed-off the dodge arguing that Marx (and others) used different terminology. The point is that, whatever names he gave to supply and to demand, and whatever he meant by “supply” and by “demand”, he grossly misunderstood the notion that price were explained by the interaction of supply and demand (or he hoped to mislead his readers, or some combination of the two).

It's trivial to find those who insist that the economics of Ricardo or of Marx or of Henry George or of some sort of interpretation of the Bible is somehow superior. That won't change the fact that Marx didn't understand (or didn't want his readers to understand) the explanation of price from the interaction of supply and demand. And mere appearance in “the literature” is an extraordinarily weak version of the (already fallacious) argument-from-authority. —SlamDiego_←T 01:58, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

If you want to put some view in the article, you want to be able to point to that view being put forth in the literature. I did not give an argument from authority. Nor was my observation a "dodge". By the way, here's Ricardo:

"It is the cost of production which must ultimately regulate the price of commodities, and not, as has been often said, the proportion between supply and demand: the proportion between supply and demand may, indeed, for a time, affect the market value of a commodity, until it is supplied in greater or less abundance, according as the demand may have increased or diminished; but this effect will be only of temporary duration." (David Ricardo, Ch. XXX, "Principles"

I suppose Ricardo was trying to mislead his readers too. -- RLV 209.217.195.131 (talk) 08:41, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't propose that the article should bother to critique the quoted passage from Marx. (This, after all, is not the main article on supply-and-demand.) The question had earlier arisen as to whether the quotation from Marx were particularly relevant, and simply in passing I mentioned the incompetence of the passage. Jack Upland asked me to elaborate here, and I have. If your observation were not a dodge, then it were perfectly irrelevant.

I didn't say that Marx were trying to mislead his readers; I said that his discussion of supply and demand can only be explained by reference to incompetence or to attempt to mislead, and it's rather obvious from earlier discussion that I'm more inclined to see the explanation in the former. So, whether Marx were willfully misleading or not, your “too” certainly is willfully misleading, which undermines the claim that your invocation of the literature were not a dodge.

(I would note, though it doesn't greatly matter here, that the positions staked-out by Ricardo and by Marx in these respective passages are not the same.) —SlamDiego_←T 10:12, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't need Ricardo and Marx to be staking out the same position. They both agree that supply and demand, as they understand supply and demand, only affect prices when they are out of proportion. What happens when they are in proportion can be a different matter. Appartly I was not clear in my irony in my remark about Ricardo being misleading. It is equally silly to say that they are being incompetent for not advocating the neoclassical theory, a theory that only became clear sometime after they had written these passages. One might or might not fully agree with, say, Garegnani's interpretation of classical economics and Marx. Still, I think, one reading these passages for sense would realize that neither Ricardo nor Marx think of demand as a schedule or function relating quantity and price. (The article on supply and demand is plenty poor when it comes to the history prior to the marginal revolution.) In a sense, the neoclassical or marginalist theory (whatever distinction one might like doesn't matter for my point) is a non-sequitur as an internal refutation of Marx or Ricardo. If I were to point out passages in Marx that criitiqued neoclassical economics before its development, I would look to the distinction between classical and vulgar economics, the idea of commodity fetishism, the bit on the illusions created by competition, and the text about the trinitarian formula. -- RLV 209.217.195.135 (talk) 02:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

No, Ricardo is not above staking-out the position as you describe it. Rather, he is arguing that “supply” and “demand” have only short-run explanatory value, whereäs Marx has claimed that somehow their equalization shows that they have no explanatory value.

The irony of your remark would have been there with or without the “too”; the “too” was (cheap) misrepresentation for (cheap) rhetorical effect. Willful misrepresentation here naturally erodes your credibility elsewhere.

It is not here silly to refer to either man as incompetent, though it would be silly to claim that Ricardo was here displaying the same lack of underlying ability as was Marx, who had the access to the work of economists after Ricardo.

However, the issue is not whether Marx should have understood the marginalist explanation of demand, the Austrian School explanation of supply, or the neoclassical explanation of supply. The issue is whether he should have understood how demand (whatever one calls it) and supply (whatever one calls it) determine price. (Explaining A in terms of B and C is plainly not the same thing as explaining B or C, otherwise it woudl simply be the case that science had never explained anything, since unexplained prior facts abide.)

Marx was writing in a context where classical economics hadn't satisfactorily explained demand or supply, but had explained how they would determine price. While he may have used the words “supply” and “demand” for concepts other than supply and demand, he was using them for intimately related concepts, and he was writing what was, amongst other things, ostensibly a rebuttal of the classical explanation as it stood in his day. The fact that he indeed didn't think in terms of a schedule (whatever his terminology) is a grand indictment, because classical economics was then thinking of them as such. Further, since Marx was ostensibly writing about the real world and about other economic theories, it isn't satisfactory to dismiss his botched references to externals as not “an internal refutation”. —SlamDiego_←T 03:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Marx says that "the disproportion between demand and supply" explains the "consequent divergences of market prices from market values" (Fernbach translation). SlamDiego somehow reads Marx as saying supply and demand have no explanatory value. Willful misrepresentation here naturally erodes his credibility elsewhere.

SlamDiego reads the neoclassical short-run/long-run distinction back into Ricardo's distinction between market and natural price. (Ricardo took this distinction from Petty by way of Smith.) This is a poor approach to the history of ideas. Be that as it may, if one is going to read that distinction into Ricardo, one should read it into Marx's contrast between market prices and market values. (Marx differed from Ricardo insofar as he decomposed the concept of natural value into further distinctions.) The classical economists had not satisfactorily explained how supply and demand, conceived as schedules, would determine price. The economists following Ricardo were confused and ambiguous.

I did not "dismiss" Marx's "botched references to externals" (as things existing in the "real world"). Willful misrepresentation here naturally erodes SlamDiego's credibility elsewhere. An external criticism of Marx would be a showing that some other theory explains empirical observations better than Marx's. Supply and demand schedules are not in the "real world". They are the product of an elaborate theory. Neither Marx nor Ricardo were incompetent for arguing for another theory, a theory, by the way, that some modern economists have recently been arguing for. -- RLV 209.217.195.124 (talk) 22:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

1. We were discussing the passage quoted in the article, not what Marx may have written elsewhere; so here, again, the willful misrepresentation is purely yours. Marx isn't somehow vindicated by self-contradiction or by inconstancy across time in his theorizing.
2. A distinction between shorter and longer term effects is certainly not peculiarly neoclassical; so here, again, the willful misrepresentation is purely yours. The claim that Marx meant to say something (still wrong) from what he did say may bring you comfort, but needs more than just the presumption that he here followed Ricardo albeït that he plainly didn't follow Ricardo elsewhere (and certainly doesn't always flag his deviations). The unsatisfactory aspect of the theory of how supply and demand (however called) in the classical economics of Marx's day was in not explaining the schedules, not in failing to show how the schedules must reconcile. To this day one can find authors who are confused and ambiguous; that doesn't refute the point that Marx was presented with a more developed intellectual infrastructure than had been Ricardo, and had less excuse for repeated or analogous errors. (And you still need to attend to the English language, and in particular to the meaning of “incompetent”. You might not like my choice of adjective, but it was quite accurate.)
3. First, supply and demand curves were observed before they were incorporated into a theory of price formation. Second, even if the theory of another were mistaken, it would still exist (qua theory) external to one's own theory. So there are two sorts of externals here, yet you wanted to critique the objections to his treatment of these externals as not “an internal refutation”. Third, again, the fact that there are Neo-Ricardians, Neo-Marxists, Neo-Georgists, Neo-whatevers doesn't show that any of these theories are actually competent; you're still trying to use an extraordinary weak version of the argument from authority. (And, in the present context, cannot plausibly recycle your earlier pretense that you are merely providing a citation to be used in the article.) —SlamDiego_←T 00:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I did not quote any passage from Marx other than the one quoted in the article, albeit from another translation. I did not claim that Marx meant to say something different from what he did say. I do not rely on the mere "presumption" that Marx followed Ricardo; I quoted Marx's own words (in translation). Supply and demand curves were not observed and are not the kind of things that can be observed. They are theoretical constructions. If I were fallaciously arguing for some proposition from authority, one would be be able to state that proposition. (The linked Wikipedia articles show where to find expansions of a view that influences my reading of, say, Ricardo.) I do not find the definition of "incompetent" as "disagrees with SlamDiego". -- RLV 209.217.195.99 (talk) 08:38, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

No, you quoted a subsequent passage from the same chapter, not the same passage merely translated differently. The fact that Marx said something rather like Ricardo in a subsequent passage doesn't mean that he said the same thing in the passage under dispute.

One could argue that dogs are not observable, since we cannot observe them all at once; we cannot observe anything all at once. It is quite true that we are far more uncertain about the exact size and shape of a given demand curve or of a given supply curve than of a typical dog, but nonetheless all three are observable. And, while it is true that one could argue the existence or observablility of each of these three from authority, that is true of any proposition; certainly not all argument is argument from authority, albeït that you've repeatedly argued from authority.

I've twice provided you with a link to the definition of “incompetent” that I did use. The fact that you could creäte an easily rejected straw-man definition is signally unimpressive. —SlamDiego_←T 08:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

From the Wikipedia entry: "Nothing is easier than to realize the inconsistencies of demand and supply, and the resulting deviation of market-prices from market-values. The real difficulty consists in determining what is meant by the equation of supply and demand." Fernbach translation: "Nothing is easier to understand than the disproportion between demand and supply, and the consequent divergences of market prices from market values. The real difficulty lies in determining what is involved when demand and supply are said to coincide." Clearly SlamDiego is devoid of those qualities requisite for effective conduct. And a particular demand curve is not observable, either. -- RLV 209.217.195.146 (talk) 10:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The passage under dispute (and hence quoted above, prior to your comments) reads

If supply equals demand, they cease to act, and for this very reason commodities are sold at their market-values. Whenever two forces operate equally in opposite directions, they balance one another, exert no outside influence, and any phenomena taking place in these circumstances must be explained by causes other than the effect of these two forces. If supply and demand balance one another, they cease to explain anything, do not affect market-values, and therefore leave us so much more in the dark about the reasons why the market-value is expressed in just this sum of money and no other.

Finding something else above it or below it, in the translation from which a Wikipedia editor drew, in the Fernbach translation, or in the original German is beside the point of whether that passage says the same thing as had been said by Ricardo in the passage (of Ricardo) that you quoted above. And you can insist that dogs and supply schedules and demand schedules are each unobservable, but in all three cases the conception of observability would not be useful. —SlamDiego_←T 11:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

SlamDiego writes, "The fact that you could creäte an easily rejected straw-man ... is signally unimpressive." And he writes "And you can insist that dogs ... are ... unobservable..." Vèry good. -- RLV 209.217.195.109 (talk) 00:38, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I emphasized the modal auxiliary in that sentence to make it plain that I wasn't claim that you were actually doing all three of those things (and my edit summary even noted as much). The problem for you is that the principles under which one could declare supply and demand curves to be unobservable would, in more general application, make things such as dogs unobservable. I impute inconsistency to you, rather than the actual claim that dogs are unobservable (though I admit that you've not come-out unequivocally on that point). —SlamDiego_←T 00:54, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

SlamDiego is making up "principles" for me. He has also made up the view that "the point" is "whether" some "passage" in Marx "says the same thing as has been said by Ricardo in the passage (of Ricardo) that you quoted above." But consider, Marx writes:

"Nothing is easier to understand than the disproportion between demand and supply, and the consequent divergences of market prices from market values... If demand and supply coincide, they cease to have any effect, and it is for this very reason that commodities are sold at their market value... If demand and supply cancel one another out, they cease to explain anything, have no effect on market value..."

Supply and demand, conceived as schedules, are not the sort of things that can be in "proportion" (Ricardo) or "disproportion" (Marx). So in these passages, both conceive of supply and demand as something other than schedules. And notice "if" in the Marx passage. It is clear that Marx, like Ricardo, "has" not "claimed that" supply and demand "have no explanatory value." I have been explicit that Marx and Ricardo are not saying the same thing. They have different views on what affects the "market value" (both Ricardo and Marx) of a commodity when supply and demand are in "proportion" (that is, not in "disproportion"). The contrast ("whereas") SlamDiego pretends to find is not there. Neither Ricardo nor Marx are being original about the common element in their different views:

"The actual price at which any commodity is commonly sold is called its market price. It may either be above, or below, or exactly the same with its natural price.

The market price of every particular commodity is regulated by the proportion between the quantity which is actually brought to market, and the demand of those who are willing to pay the natural price of the commodity, or the whole value of the rent, labour, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither. Such people may be called the effectual demanders, and their demand the effectual demand..." -- Adam Smith, "Wealth", Book I, Chap. VII. "Of the Natural and Market Price of Commodities"

Smith has a third theory of what regulates the natural price. But Smith, Ricardo, and Marx all agree that market prices are explained by supply (a quantity) not being in proportion to the level of effectual demand (another quantity). This is a theory that contrasts with neoclassical theory. And supply and demand have different meanings in classical theory than they do in so-called neoclassical theory. (These points have been explained in the literature.) -- RLV, 209.217.195.152 (talk) 07:47, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm not making up principles for you; but, meanwhile, you're studiously ducking the issue of principles under which supply and demand curves are not observable but things such as dogs somehow are.

I've already agreed above that Marx didn't think in terms of schedules of supply and demand. (“The fact that he indeed didn't think in terms of a schedule (whatever his terminology) is a grand indictment”.) Setting out to prove that he or Ricardo or Smith didn't think of such schedules is like seeking to invade territory that no one wants. Go ahead and hoist your flag.

Classical economics wasn't monolithic or constant through time on supply and demand. Writing as if it were is ridiculous.

In Marx's day, classical economists had seen that demand schedules and supply schedules would determine price, though these classical economists had only kludgy theories to in turn explain those schedules (and a kludgy theory of the supply schedule was continued by the neoclassical economists whom you confuse with marginalists more generally). Marx should have responded to the theory of his day, and represented himself as if doing so, but he botches it. —SlamDiego_←T 08:56, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

It seems I'm not the only one who finds SlamDunk a bit too dismissive and a bit too quick to twist opponent's words. At the same time, I'm glad that he did finally respond to my query. And - lo and behold - despite both of our misgivings someone else was actually interested. While I understand what he has said, I don't think that hypothetical supply and demand curves really cut it. Anyone can produce a table of made-up figures. What I would like to know is the formula for deriving those figures, i.e. if P is price, S is quantity supplied and D is quantity demanded, then what is the price? Or, if you like concrete numbers, if S=100, D=100, what is the price (P) of bananas on Unnamed Desert Island No 475?--Jack Upland (talk) 22:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

It's quite amusing that you call me “dismissive”, since it's your rhetoric that contains so little other than unfounded dismissal. I “finally” responded to your query when it ceased to be a request for a quasi-private lesson elsewhere.

Again: The fact that demand needs explanation and that supply needs explanation doesn't change the fact that Marx presented an utterly botched response to the theory of how they in turn explain price.

The presumption that explanation corresponds to a tidy system of arithmetic formulæ is a crude scientism rather than a real science.

As to how one indeed explains demand and explains supply, that is where marginalism improved upon the late classical school. Demand curves and supply curves are the horizontal sums of the demand curves and supply curves peculiar to individual participating agents. Individual demand curves and individual supply curves are determined by marginal rates of substitution. Rates of marginal substitution are determined by marginal utilities, which are themselves are result of individual preferences and endowments. The formation of individual preferences moves us out of the realm of economics per se, and into the realm of psychology. Present endowments are the product of past decisions (still driven by marginal utilities and so forth), by accident, and by cosmology. That's all quite literally the principal material of a first-term college microëconomics course, the sort of material of which you ought to make a study before attempting to critique an article on marginalism. If there's any of that which you don't quite follow, then at the least you probably need to obtain a good elementary econ book or pay for an econ tutor, rather than trying to cadge free lessons. —SlamDiego_←T 00:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

In that case, Mandel's quote given in the article is quite apposite. It is incomprehensible that the aggregate of so many individual psychological impulses (personal whims)could produce universal market prices (harsh economic realities) and prices which remain reasonably stable over time, e.g. a pencil is still cheaper than an limosine a century later.

If you want to talk about "crude scientism", the construction of demand and supply "curves" which (confessedly) don't apply to anything in what is slightingly called the "real economy" is beyond crude - it's plain bonkers.

And "finally" I never requested a "quasi-private lesson": I was merely cognisant of Wiki rules against using these pages as a debating forum. As to your educational advice, having a Master's degree in Commerce, I think further education would not produce your desired result. Perhaps as an alternative you should listen to other people - if only because their wrongness could paradoxically be a catalyst to further advances in your own multifaceted and undoubted superiority. But you don't need suggestions from a lowly worm like me...--Jack Upland (talk) 10:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

No, the fact that you find something incomprehensible hardly makes it so. If you had the basic theory down, then perhaps someone could-and-would discuss with you how, in the context of that theory, some things have the same relative prices, while others have reversed the relative order of price. (However good luck in finding a limousine produced during or before 1908!)

Since the term “real economy” gets used for a variety of things, I don't know whether you're presenting a forged confession, something which you confuse with a confession, or essentially just reïterating grossly confused notions of where and how the things that are not subjective participate in economic processes. (It rather laughably obvious where-and-how marginalism incorporates their participation.)

You requested that I give you lessons in supply and demand on your personal talk page; that would have indeed make things quasi-private. As to your ostensible cognizance of what you take to be Wikipedia rules, your insistence that an incidental remark be debated here shows that your priority was in attempting to find vindication for Marx, rules-be-d_mn'd. (Likewise with RLV, who has elsewhere objected to treating article talk pages as if they are Usenet.) It is really beside the point whether some institution awarded you what they called a masters degree in commerce; you are evidently unfamiliar with introductory microëconomic theory; and you need to develop a familiarity with it before you can competently critique it. —SlamDiego_←T 10:51, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

So basically you've responded to all my points but answered none.--Jack Upland (talk) 12:19, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

No, your assertions each got answered. I explained that your claim of incomprehensibility involved an illogical presumption that no one could comprehend something if you found it incomprehensible. (Really, there is a fine analogy here with those who claim that it is incomprehensible that the world as we know it might exist without a designer.) I explained that it wasn't clear what you mean by “real economy”, but that whatever you meant your claim would come down to some sort of misrepresentation of what rôle non-subjective elements played in marginalist theory. I noted that you had asked for quasi-private lessons in economics. (Why you requested that they be quasi-private didn't change the fact that you requested that they be so.) I noted that your supposed respect for what you regard as the rules of how talk pages are to be used is tissue-thin. I noted that your claim to have some sort of certification from some sort of institution didn't trump the fact that you've obviously not learned introductory microeconomic theory. And I noted that you should learn that material before you attempt to critique an article such as this one. —SlamDiego_←T 13:47, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling of rôle/role

Oops, I just changed "rôle" to "role" without seeing that it had already gone back and forth before. I didn't mean to further an edit war. I grant that "rôle" is not an incorrect spelling, though, I believe it is less common, and I find it distracting. What do other people think? --Ryguasu 23:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

1. If it ain't broke, don't fit it.
2. If the whole friggin' thing were broke, and some guy done fixed it, don't fix what they done what ain't broke. He don't own it, but you should still be polite-like.
3. There is an alternate Wikipedia for simple language, spelling, &c.

—SlamDiego_←T 07:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Everyone who has edited this page except for you prefers the standard spelling, which is the standard spelling on Wikipedia. Wikipedia generally eschews uncommon spellings, even if correct; for example, we frequently have bots changing "publically" to "publicly", even though both are correct. --Delirium 00:39, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't engaging in stalking and spite edits. —12.72.73.66 23:54, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I propose "röle", sounds just better! Agree, SlámDiegö? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.84.82.3 (talk • contribs)

The string “röle” is not an English word at all, however it might sound. There is of course no difference in the sounds of “rôle” and “role”. In any case, there are no accepted alternative spellings to my Wikipedia account name, including “SlámDiegö”. —SlamDiego_←T 12:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Consulting Dictionary.com, I could find “publically” accepted by only one authority — WordNet^®, whereas “rôle” is accepted by Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1·1), The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition), the Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary (wherein it is listed as the primary spelling), The American Heritage^® Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, and Merriam–Webster’s Medical Dictionary; therefore, I don’t think that they’re comparable. Rôle is the original spelling, and remains perfectly standard to this day. Diacritical and other supra-ASCII spellings are often omitted in typed text, but that can in a great many (perhaps the majority of) situations be explained by the effort that must be invested in order to insert the necessary character(s) using a basic keyboard. Whether you believe, as I, Slam Diego, and the anon do, that the rôle spelling ought to be retained, or you believe, as Ryguasu and Delirium do, that the role spelling ought to be used instead, I’m sure we can all agree that consistency is necessary; the word role occurs once later in the article — I’m going to change it to rôle. Whether role or rôle is chosen, the spellings of the two occurrences of the word ought to match. Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 12:07, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep... changed it back to role. There's absolutely no justification for using an infrequent, distracting spelling with special characters. Strad (talk) 01:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Nope. Not only is “rôle” an acceptable spelling in standard dictionaries; it is the preferred spelling in many. Sneering that it is pretentious is not a sound argument, and baldly violates WP:CIVIL. —SlamDiego_←T 03:41, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Preferred spelling in many dictionaries, mhmm, sure. No, don't respond that such-and-such dictionary lists rôle before role and therefore that means it's "preferred", or that some other no-name publication uses rôle—we both know role is far and away the predominant spelling in all varieties and levels of English writing. Of course, to diacritic fetishists that's not a problem. For them, Wikipedia is a tool not to educate readers but to remind the unwashed plebs that they have neither the wherewithal nor the custom keyboard layouts to deal with the material they are reading. Everyone who visits this article will be bothered by the annoying affectation that is rôle. I and other editors have gone through revert warring, talk page polls, and RfCs over extraneous dots, ligatures, and circumflexes, and I have no desire to go down that road again. And since anyone can edit Wikipedia, I don't have to. There will constantly be visitors to the article putting the normal spelling back in because, well, they have the curious idea that prose on Wikipedia is supposed to be accessible and engaging to everyone on the internet. Strad (talk) 04:33, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

It is the convention — and various dictionaries make it explicit that they follow the convention — for dictionaries to list preferred spellings (and preferred pronunciations) first. Indeed, some things are more common than others, but we would discard some words altogether if only the most common way of writing things were to prevail. You use of the term “fetishist” is yet another violation of WP:CIVIL, and your imputation of motive both involves another violation and an exaggerated sense of your understanding of the people with whom you disagree. No, not everyone will be disturbed by “rôle”; plainly more than one editor here has defended it. I am glad that you are unwilling to bear the costs associated with imposing your desires here. —SlamDiego_←T 05:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the concept of Marginalism. The purpose of this article is not to discuss the accepted spelling of English words. The Google test clearly shows "role" as the predominant spelling. The above discourse is irrelevent to the topic at hand and should not have been started anyway. --Klaser (talk) 17:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Marginalism as a Reaction to Marxism

I might as well point out this: http://robertvienneau.blogspot.com/2008/02/marginalism-as-reaction-to-marxism.html. There are some cited quotations. -- RLV 209.217.195.64 (talk) 09:26, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Markèd

What does this word mean? I have heard of "marked" (clearly noticable), but not "markèd". I could not find it in any dictionary, so please include the explanation in the article itself, for the benefit of everyone. --Adoniscik (talk) 21:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of the article is not to teach English, and this is not the Simple English Wikipedia. The word “markèd” has two syllables, and has the narrower meaning of having pronounced distinction, whereas “marked” is more ambiguous. —SlamDiego_←T 21:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

BTW, what grave accents usually do when they appear in English is merely indicate that a syllable is to be pronounced, abeït without stress. (Diaereses are sometimes similarly used, as in “Brontë”.) —SlamDiego_←T 22:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The diacritical spelling of "marked" exists only in your imagination. I consulted both the OED [2] and the M-W [3], and listened to its pronunciation in the electronic Concise OED, and heard only one syllable. The diacritical form is not even mentioned. There is no ambiguity here, but one may wonder, as I did, what the word means. Quite the opposite of your intention to clarify the meaning. I'm reverting since you have not provided strong support for your position. --Adoniscik (talk) 22:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

First, you are leaving the bounds of civility by making this rude declaration. Here are some falsifying examples quickly found on the WWWeb (underscores added by me):

• “The second part of the previous week’s segment is a seamless segue and but one example of the Tape-beatles’ markèd penchant for making the tracks ‘bleed’ (to borrow a printer’s term) one into the other.”
• “I have found a markèd difference between air dried and heat dried...”
• “Similarly a learnèd scholar, a markèd improvement, accursèd life, hallowèd be Thy name.”
• “The metro area around NYC also experienced a markèd increase in population over that period...”

Now, I'm not sure why your commitment is great enough to scale to ugly accusations about my mind, but I suggest that you withdraw from editing this article. That sentence ain't broke; don't fix it. —SlamDiego_←T 00:38, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

If that's the best documentation you can find, you'll have to agree it's rather non-standard. You have a serious case of WP:OWN. I'll leave you to "your" article. --Adoniscik (talk) 04:21, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

No, that's not the best documentation that could be found; it was merely a sufficient disproof of your insulting claim that “markèd” was my own delusional invention. I agree that it's infrequently used, but that's hardly a basis for rejecting it. (People like you, who are unfamiliar with “markèd”, are like you going to take the diacrit as simply stray; people who are actually familiar with the grave are going read the sentence more exactly as intended.) Replacing your earlier insult with “You have a serious case of WP:OWN.” is a further ill-founded breach of civility. I don't believe that any editor should “fix” unbroken articles simply because he or she has a preference for a different voice, or hasn't previously encountered a word, spelling, or construction. —SlamDiego_←T 06:18, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

People who are actually familiar with the grave are going read the sentence more exactly as intended.

I have failed to explain that these readers are in the minority. You are not clarifying, you are obfuscating. --Adoniscik (talk) 16:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I fail to see how the grave accent obfuscates the meaning here. As SlamDiego has explained, those who understand the English function of the grave accent (which is explained here) will know that it is the disyllabic adjective (pronounced in RP as /ˈmɑːkɪd/) — rather than the monosyllabic verb form (pronounced in RP as /mɑːkt/) — that is being used; those who are unfamiliar with the grave accent’s function in English will see a small line above an ‘e’, but they will still read it as an ‘e’. You can of course argue that the accent is superfluous, as most people will infer which sense is meant from context; however, that is not a good reason to remove it, as its presence does no harm, and for those familiar with it, it does some disambiguating good. Nevertheless, for Adoniscik’s and any other confused reader’s sake, I encourage SlamDiego to create a Wiktionary entry for markèd as an alternative spelling, with a usage note to explain its specialised use (see Wiktionary’s entry for learnèd for some guidance). (Please ensure that your contribution is made in accordance with wikt:WT:CFI and all of Wiktionary’s other policies.) Raifʻhār Doremítzwr (talk) 19:09, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Gah! There is enough grief in editing Wikipedia! Now you'd have me edit the Wikitionary? —SlamDiego_←T 21:37, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Again, for that majority which is generally unfamiliar with the use of the grave accent in English (reasonably well explained in one of the sources that I cited above), it's just a stray mark; they'll just read “markèd” as “marked”, and then have to figure just which meaning of “marked” were meant. —SlamDiego_←T 21:37, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can see, the bisyllabic word 'markèd' does not exist in standard English, with or without the written accent. The phoneme '-ed-' is however sounded separately in 'markedness' and 'markedly', which may account for the confusion. Rothorpe (talk) 23:34, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, three of the citations that I provided above are from “everyday” discourse; it certainly does exist. And I didn't invent it (and then popularize it with impressive success); I have repeatedly encountered it in reading. I just didn't realize on those occasions that I would have cause to note where I had found it, to defend its use elsewhere. (It's very easy to find citations in early modern English, as in Marlowe and in Shakespeare.)

(BTW, “disyllabic” is better formed than “bisyllabic”.) —SlamDiego_←T 00:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I nearly put 'disyllabic' & then changed it, a habit I must lose. No, I don't say you invented disyllabic 'markèd' just that it's not standard modern British English. Rothorpe (talk) 00:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but the article in general is in American English. (And, incidentally, I suspect that the citations that I used above are all from American authors.) —SlamDiego_←T 00:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Does Merriam-Webster have the accent, then? If so, no problem; if not, you're likely to continue to meet with opposition. Rothorpe (talk) 17:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Contra Adoniscik, M-W (at the very URL that he cited) does note the disyllabic form, as confined to “having a distinctive or emphasized character” (just as I'd said). The diacrit itself (whose use I can show continues in prose, at least amongst some American authors, both specific to “markèd” and elsewhere) is analogous to an underscore.

BTW, finding “rôle” in virtually every dictionary of note doesn't stop the attacks thereupon, so finding a marked “markèd” would be unlikely to do so. —SlamDiego_←T 21:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

So the disyllable is indeed an American usage. The accents in BrE seem to be confined to hymn books: blessèd. Both pronunciations of that word exist in BrE, but there is no problem because of attributive/predicative. My OD has 'role' without italics followed by rôle, but you hardly ever see the accented version nowadays. Rothorpe (talk) 22:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

It is interesting how linguistic colonies often hold onto linguistic elements. Norman French was and Quebecois is noted for continuing features of French abandoned in France itself, and although much of the innovation in English is coming from America, nonetheless some older forms are preserved (or even revived) here that have been largely abandoned in England. —SlamDiego_←T 23:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes: it’s an understandable nostalgia. You may have seen from my user page that I’ve invented an accent system of my own (which I’m putting on the Citizendium at the moment): in my system ‘markèd’ would be ‘markayed’. So I tend to resist the old ones. Rothorpe (talk) 16:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I found this accidentally, but I'd like to say I'm against the accent. I see no advantage in clarity, and I think (with no data except the above discussion) that some will find it distracting. "Marked" is the most common spelling in all varieties of English, with "markèd" being a rare variant in American English only, and as a spelling not in M-W. (Neither the two-syllable spelling nor the pronunciation is in American Heritage [4].) I think the encyclopedia should prefer the universally accepted option to the one-country and controversial one.

By the way, I suspect Rothorpe is right that this pronunciation and the trisyllabic "alleged" and "supposed" are back-formed from the -ly adverbs, since the three -ly adverbs are so common. "Stripèd" (which I associate with Texas) is more likely to be a survival, though. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 03:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

One can easily produce words that would be recognized as properly spelled which do not appear in standard dictionaries — trivial inflections and compoundings. What is required in such cases is that the inflection or compounding follow the rules for such. Analogously, there are rules for the used of the grave accent. (M-W and the AHD make a point of including the Shakespearean vocabulary, Shakespeare wrote “markèd”, and yet neither dictionary bothers with the grave accent because it involves no more than a trivial application of the rules.)

You might argue that there is little advantage in clarity, but it is simply a mistake to claim that there is none. Disyllabic “marked” has a more specific meaning than monosyllabic “marked”, and the way to signal in writing that an unstressed syllable is sounded is with a grave accent.

If we everywhere used “the universally accepted option”, then we'd also have to eliminate whole expressions (in favor of synonymous expressions). There's actually a Wikipedia to pretty much do just that; but this isn't it.

Meanwhile, if we simply sought always to stay in the intersection of American and British English, the results would certainly read as odd' to native speakers of either.

If /ˈmɑː(r)kəd/ is a back-formation; then it is an odd one which reëstablishes a previous form. Such things happen, but I don't think that one happened here. —SlamDiego_←T 08:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I think there's absolutely no advantage in clarity. "There are marked differences" can mean only one thing. There's a disadvantge in clarity, because readers outside North America may wonder, "Does 'markèd' mean something different from 'marked'?"

I see nothing wrong with eliminating a word that isn't even in most dictionaries in favor of one that is understood widely. I admit that M-W handles "learned" the same way they handle "marked", and we do see "learnèd" once in a while, so one can say "markèd" is in that dictionary. But there's no reason people reading an article on economics should have to use M-W—even American Heritage won't help—to understand a word that would be perfectly clear without the accent.

The intersection of American and British and other countries' English, or as I said the things that are universally accepted, are precisely the things that don't look odd to anyone.

"Marked difference" is standard English everywhere, and I can hardly imagine it looks odd to anyone. I'd now go farther than I did above and say the spelling "markèd" is not standard English anywhere. The only hits on it at Google Books are an OCR error and an unviewable page in a French poetry book [5]. For comparison, there are 2980 hits on "marked difference", 2870 on "marked improvement", 2230 on "marked decline", etc.; for another, there are 51 hits on "learnèd", mostly poetry. Maybe "markèd" has been used in modern edited text somewhere, but if so, it's so rare that I feel justified in calling it non-standard even in North America.

By the way, we don't know what Shakespeare wrote, but a glance at a few facsimile pages of the First Folio doesn't turn up any accents. Syllabic -ed is printed "ed"; when it's not a syllable, the "e" is deleted or replaced with an apostrophe. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 15:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

There is a very important difference between there only being one plausible reading for a sentence, and there being no clarity in using “markèd”. The meaning of “markèd” is clear even before the sentence is parsed.

I was addressing your specific invocation of universal acceptability. That original invocation has an appeal partly founded in its simplicity; but such a rules is, as it were, too simple. So too is the idea of using only words found in most dictionaries. Most dictionaries have fewer than 50K entries, and lack words that are essential to reasonable communication of scientific and philosophic communication.

Depending upon what one means by “standard” (drawing definitions from M-W or the AHD if you wish), one could say that most words aren't standard English. A radically democratic notion isn't really relevant here.

Whatcha wanna bet that I can find “markèd” in the Google Books dB, even if it doesn't turn up when you search for “markèd” per se?

You don't seem to appreciate what a weird style would emerge from ejecting both “hood” and “bonnet” from discussion of automobiles, both “lift” and “elevator” from discussions of mass transit and architecture, and from avoiding things very common in one yet not in the other, such as “gotten”. It would be a dialect alien to everyone by virtue of having no part alien to anyone.

And, yes, literally speaking, we don't know what Shakespeare wrote (beyond a personal document), but “markèd” is found in editions of his alleged works. The fact that it doesn't turn up in M-W (nor, apparently, in Google Books Search) is somewhat analogous to underlying not turning up where other authors have used that. —SlamDiego_←T 03:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I continue to see no advantage in clarity with the accent. After "There is a", the meaning we expect when we see "marked" is precisely the adjectival meaning we get. I don't see why anyone (who knows the word) would hesitate in the slightest. This is especially true of the reader who has managed the first sentence of the article: "Marginalism is the use of marginal concepts within economics." Does "marginal" mean relegated to the margins, or does it mean the concepts are barely concepts, or does it have the economics meaning? The meaning of "marked", however, is immediately clear.

And even if some readers would hesitate an instant at "marked", you're straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. "Markèd" is so rare—unknown in this sense in much of the English-speaking world—that it will be cause far more hesitation. In the best case I can think of, some Americans may think, "'Markèd? Oh, mar-ked. That's just how I say it!" (or in my case, "I've heard people say it that way") which is more processing than the perfectly ordinary "marked" demands. In the worst case, some British, Irish, South African, Australian, New Zealand, etc., readers may say, "What is this? Never heard of it. Reminds me of Shakespeare, but this is hardly Shakespeare. I'd better look it up. No, nothing relevant in my dictionary. Maybe it's an Americanism. Here's an on-line dictionary with "American" in the name—the American Heritage Dictionary. No, nothing here either. There's five minutes spent on that word—I'd better go on to the rest of the sentence." The problem is far worse than any problem caused by "marked".

(By the way, you said above that the AHD doesn't bother with the accent "because it involves no more than a trivial application of the rules", but not so. They don't recognize the two-syllable pronunciation. I imagine either they're behind the times or they think it's wrong.)

Since you offered that bet about Google Books, I looked harder and did find a "markèd" in Richard III there, so I agree that my search missed some instances. I checked the first 25 hits on "marked difference" that appeared to be American or Canadian, and none had an accent. I think "markèd" is vanishingly rare in modern edited text, as I said above, and I'd like to see even one example.

True, some nineteenth-century and later editors of Shakespeare and other poets use -èd to show the meter, but that argues against your clarity argument. If people have seen "markèd" before, it's far more likely to have been in Shakespeare with a past-tense meaning rather than in modern prose with an adjectival meaning, so the accent is just as likely to distract them (briefly) from the intended sense than to help them see it.

On simplicity, I never recommended using only words that are universally understood. I don't know of any such word for the "lid" of a car's engine compartment, so we have to choose between "hood" and "bonnet". When I said "the universally accepted option" I was referring to this specific case, where there is a universally accepted option. I'm not recommending limiting our technical vocabulary—just following the standard spelling of every English-speaking country rather than adopting one that exists as a non-standard variant in America. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 23:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Your counter-argument on clarity sets-up a false dichotomy, in which any sentence which can be understood is equally clear. I think that there's no doubt that the sentence that you cite would not be clear to someone who didn't understand what, in this context, “marginal” means, but the article goes on to explicitly explain the relevant concept. Unless it had a digression on the meaning of “marked”, any analogy will be weak. (Moreover, when the article “Marginal concepts” is rendered less amateurish, wikification is going to enhance the sentence that you cite.)

As has earlier been discussed, the way that people unfamiliar with “markèd” in particular (and with the rules of the grave accent in general) actually process it is to assume simply that the diacritical mark is stray.

You're conflating two things on w.r.t. the AHD — what pronunciations they support, and what orthography they support. Clearly there is much of the Shakespearean pronunciation that they ignore (syllabic and otherwise), but they attempt to support the written Shakespearean vocabulary.

Dang! No bet? I guess that I won't make Big Dough off you.

The grave accent isn't simply found in 19th Century editions of Shakespeare, but in 18th Century editions of Burns, and so forth. But, again, you're confusing two things:

1. whether /ˈmɑːrkəd/ is standard American English
2. what the proper effect is of a grave accent.

M-W answers the first question, and I hear /ˈmɑːrkəd/ pretty much everywhere that I've lived. We can discuss the second question if need be. But it is important not to presume that relative infrequency of “markèd” in print presumes that /ˈmɑːrkəd/ is absent.

No, under what you actually proposed, we would use neither “bonnet” nor “hood”, but instead some circumlocution. And you're still not getting the point that articles that used no parts that were not universally familiar would end-up looking alien to ever native reader of English — as if all written by able non-native schoolboys — even if we never confronted a “bonnet”/“hood” problem. (At this point, you seem to be moving towards an ad hoc proposition, but ad hoc rules generally have a spurious appearance of simplicity.) —SlamDiego_←T 04:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Nothing I said implies that "any sentence which can be understood is equally clear." By a strange coincidence, I came across this quotation from Nabokov yesterday:

Why not have the reader re-read a sentence now and then? It won't hurt him. [6]

But I agree with you that such sentences aren't good for Wikipedia. I specifically argued that the sentence in question is clear and doesn't need to be reread. In particular, "marked" would mean exactly what the reader expects it to mean. The reader doesn't take a single step down the garden path. If you still think I implied any false dichotomy such as the one you imputed to me, please show me where I implied that.

Incidentally, your comments on "marginal" have another gnat-camel problem. You don't accept marked because, in your view, the reader doesn't understand it until he or she has parsed the sentence. But you accept "marginal" even though the reader doesn't understand it until he or she has read the next section, or clicked a future link and read part of another article.

It was not previously "discussed" that people unfamiliar with the accent will think of it as a stray mark. You asserted it a couple of times. With an equal amount of data, I'm sure you're right about some people. I've known people who will ignore anything unfamiliar. But with just as much data as you have, I assert that others will be distracted by this unfamiliar glyph. And the many people who know it indicates a separate syllable, but have no idea what a two-syllable "marked" means, will be distracted by wondering what it means when "marked" would have been instantly clear.

I don't see what I'm conflating about the AHD, but let me try to state things without any conflation. You argued, as I understand it, that M-W admits “markèd” because it gives the two-syllable pronunciation and gives the rule for the grave accent that means “markèd” is a way of spelling that pronunciation. But AHD doesn't give that pronunciation. Therefore it doesn't admit "markèd". Of course the two-syllable pronunciation existed in poetry (with no differentiated meaning), but AHD isn't concerned with historical pronunciation. And of course two-syllable "marked" is now sometimes written with an accent, but we're talking about modern prose, not Shakespeare's or Burns's poetry.

You say that M-W answers the question of "whether /ˈmɑːrkəd/ is standard American English". I don't think it claims its listed pronunciations are standard. For example, under "wash" it says "\chiefly Midland also ˈwȯrsh or ˈwärsh"\. Its third pronunciation of "government" is \ˈgə-b^əm-ənt \. (I think the superscript schwa indicates that the following /m/ is syllabic.) I trust you'll agree with me that these pronunciations are non-standard and thus that M-W doesn't settle the question of whether a pronunciation is standard.

Even if you don't agree with that, AHD doesn't list the pronunciation, so the most you can say is that whether the pronunciation is standard is open to debate.

My inability to find "markèd" in modern printed prose indeed doesn't mean it's absent (though it's entirely consistent with absence). It does strongly suggest that "markèd" is so rare as to be non-standard, as I said. Editors generally don't use it, and we should follow their practice.

You say I "actually proposed" a rule that would require using a circumlocution for the "bonnet" or "hood" of a car. I said nothing of the kind. I can't be sure what you inferred that from, but my best guess is this:

"Marked" is the most common spelling in all varieties of English, with "markèd" being a rare variant in American English only, and as a spelling not in M-W. (Neither the two-syllable spelling nor the pronunciation is in American Heritage [7].) I think the encyclopedia should prefer the universally accepted option to the one-country and controversial one.

In the first place, I was talking about the specific choice between "marked" and "markèd". In the second, as I said, the comment above doesn't apply to "hood" and "bonnet", as there's no universally accepted option. In the third, it doesn't apply because neither "hood" nor "bonnet" is controversial.

By the way, I realized later that I was giving modern "markèd" too much credit. I see no reason to think it's even reached the status of "controversial" among professional editors. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:54, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] former or latter?

The article says, "For those who accepted that indifference curve analysis superseded marginal utility analysis, the former became at best somewhat analogous to the Bohr model of the atom — perhaps pedagogically useful, but “old fashioned” and ultimately incorrect." Should "former" be "latter"? I don't know much about economics, but it seems the thing that was superseded—marginal-utility analysis—should be the “old fashioned” thing.

Back to "markèd" when I get the chance. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 20:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, and “superseded” was mispelled. That section was the victim of editing warring, an it looks like something screwy crept-in.

I'm visiting my partner these days, who uses a Mac. I'm quite uncomfortable with the GUI (I mostly use various Linux GUIs and occasionally WindowsXP), so I'm probably not going to get back to discussing “markèd” for a while. —SlamDiego_←T 09:01, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Explanation

My edit summary for and edit got truncated, so I am posting an explanation of the edit here:

The “law” of diminishing marginal utility isn't really a law; it is more of a typical case. The “law” and its implications are described in the article. Wikification of “law of diminishing marginal utility” just takes the reader to a redirect.

BTW, I am still wrestling with a kludgy Win9x beast, as I await repair of my nice Linux box (which will probably be fixed on late Monday). So I'm still limiting my edits accordingly. My apologies to anyone whom is thus frustrated. —SlamDiego_←T 07:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This is too technical

I agree with the little Wiki banner this is too technical for what is a VERY simple idea. I also think it was Jevons more than anyone was responsible for the "revolution". Reading his earlier works, it's clear to me at least, modern economics is owes much to Jevons.

At it's most basic (and for modern students) there exists a point or limit as you want to call it, at which people do not desire anymore of one particular product. The goal of wikipedia should be telling the greatest number of people the idea not the detail. The major authors of this page clearly know the subject but care little for the viewer. Draw on contempory experiance, people " get fed up of big brother and start watching the apprentice" [UK example sorry] but that was and is at the heart of this area. Show your knowledge by explaining it to everyone not to the interested reader. It's the economic backing of the statement "Too much of a good thing is not a good thing"

Saying that I think this is excellent, and clearly there has been a good deal of time spent on this. Well done for that. I just think it can be more suited to the average viewer.

D —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.30.156.106 (talk) 17:36, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The tag (with which I disagree) does not declare the whole article to be too technical; it declares the lede to be possibily too technical. (And the reason that I disagree is that it needs to be correct, and needs to be concise, and cannot get much less technical without a great sacrifice in correctness or concision.)

Really, only someone very much in the tradition that flowed from Jevons could possibly think that the article should confine itself to that tradition. —SlamDiego_←T 18:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)