Against naive materialism: culture, consumption and the causes of inequality

Economic orthodoxy is narrowly materialistic in that it largelyneglects the cultural significance of commodities. Taking asits starting point Sen's work on capabilities, the paper examinesmodern consumer theory and argues that consumption is an inherentlycomplex activity that requires considerable knowledge and expertiseand which cannot be adequately understood from an individualistpoint of view. It is argued that interpersonal comparisons areconsequently more complicated than is suggested in Sen's workon capabilities, and that an inquiry into the cultural aspectsof consumption encourages a reappraisal of the role of preferencesand sheds light on the deeper causes of inequality.     

Notes and comments. A re(in)statement of the labour theory of value: a comment

The aim of this paper is to show that the main conclusions inMohun's (1994) paper rest on an implicit assumption: the compositionof net output has to remain constant. When this is removed,some paradoxical results are obtained.