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Re: Perms & Opportunity cost

At 12:56 PM 6/11/97 -0400, MWBRYANT@aol.com wrote:

Ursa Major returns to the fray.........  Hiya Mike.

>>>>>>>>>>
I seem to hear some folks (Hoe, Korcok, imagine that...) explaining how perms
and other questions of competition are resolved via considerations of
opportunity cost.

The literature on opportunity costs from the field of economics is heavily
intertwined with  the concept we like to refer to as "propensity." In other
words, the cost of a precluded opportunity that has zero probability of
coming about is still zero.
>>>>>>>>>>

Interesting that you shold mention this. I have been having a backchannel
discussion with Lucius K of George Mason for the past 3 weeks on just this
subject.

>>>>>>>>>>
So, my request for illumination includes the following questions:

1. How can opportunity cost ever really be molded to apply to argumentative
constructs (counterplan competition, perms) that seem to be allowed to
short-circuit any consideration of propensity via the artificial concepts of
fiat and "testing"?
>>>>>>>>>>

This is exactly what I was defending. It was my posit that there is no
"fiat" for the counterplan since it is merely a "test" of the opportunity
cost of the plan. If the c/plan is not an advocacy, why would you "let it be
done"?

Additionally, propensity would be aff ground since the opportunity foregone
would be weighted based on how much of an "opportunity" it really is. If
there is NO chance for socialism to ever take over, how much of an
opportunity is really lost?

>>>>>>>>>>
2. Why is it OK to incorporate a portion of opportunity cost theory and
ignore the critical assumption of propensity in which the literature is
grounded?  
>>>>>>>>>>

I don't think it is.

(snippet)

>>>>>>>>>>
If the negative succeeds in incorporating a full range of opportunity costs
variables, it just seems like they end up winning a disadvantage. 
>>>>>>>>>>

Except that there IS a difference between opportunity costs and direct
costs. One says that A=B and the other says that A precludes B. True, they
both have some of the same characteristics, but so do topicality and
justification. 

All in all I agree with you, Bear, but I think that c/plans, while based on
opp cost, have aquired a convention (fiat) that they neither needed, nor
wanted. It is this convention that has made many question basing c/plans on
opp cost rather than the flaws in the theoretical constructs.
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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