How many things matter?
One issue I take with traditional economics is the supposition that all things boil down into price and quantity/availability. Think about this the next time you pass the water aisle at the grocery store. Water being an elemental compound with an infinite supply freely available at sink tap andt does the exact same things as these little bottles. Yet bottled water is booming business because people make consumer decisions on more than two factors.
My undergraduate program taught seven competitive advantages on which businesses compete. I wonder if one were able to quantify all together in multivariate analysis how large a role price would actually play. I would assume each culture has a separate combination within those factors that leads its proclivity towards adherence to price fluctuations over say commericial imagery. The excessively wealthy nations would prefer status priced items to remain as such, with jewelry stores precluded from advertising the affordability their diamond engagement rings. All speculation, if such theory has already been tested I simply remain uneducated.
A thought struck me that this is essentially constructing a viewpoint of the cultural values of the people. But if too many factors come into play, each individual is a culture unto themselves and there is no meaningful information for the larger society. Clearly a line must be drawn for the number of items that matter to any person at any given point accessing any given decision. Economics traditionally gives a matter of that decision based on the utility of the decision. This omits the obvious; cultural norms often outweigh utility. Conversely, anthropology tends to sometimes ascribe value where they might not be anything more than utility.
There must be a middle ground and means to merge the holistic views of anthropology and the limited understanding of economics. If such a field of study exists I know too little about it. I had a thought that perhaps psychology had something with the debated pyramid stylized rankings of decision-making processes. Maybe there is something there, as hard as it may be to get to. Sometimes the individual accords with utility and sometimes accords with cultural preferences, but sometimes accords with personal preferences. In between, life happens. Maybe I just don't know enough about decision-making theory or psychology. I do believe common political and economic models are fatally flawed in their ability to depict behavior as they derive from two variables and a utility-maximizing populace. But there must be some way to get economics to grasp onto multivariate interrelationships of how business conducts and what matters.
So then, how many things matter? Not enough and too much! I'll take the easy way out and postulate that things matter.
My undergraduate program taught seven competitive advantages on which businesses compete. I wonder if one were able to quantify all together in multivariate analysis how large a role price would actually play. I would assume each culture has a separate combination within those factors that leads its proclivity towards adherence to price fluctuations over say commericial imagery. The excessively wealthy nations would prefer status priced items to remain as such, with jewelry stores precluded from advertising the affordability their diamond engagement rings. All speculation, if such theory has already been tested I simply remain uneducated.
A thought struck me that this is essentially constructing a viewpoint of the cultural values of the people. But if too many factors come into play, each individual is a culture unto themselves and there is no meaningful information for the larger society. Clearly a line must be drawn for the number of items that matter to any person at any given point accessing any given decision. Economics traditionally gives a matter of that decision based on the utility of the decision. This omits the obvious; cultural norms often outweigh utility. Conversely, anthropology tends to sometimes ascribe value where they might not be anything more than utility.
There must be a middle ground and means to merge the holistic views of anthropology and the limited understanding of economics. If such a field of study exists I know too little about it. I had a thought that perhaps psychology had something with the debated pyramid stylized rankings of decision-making processes. Maybe there is something there, as hard as it may be to get to. Sometimes the individual accords with utility and sometimes accords with cultural preferences, but sometimes accords with personal preferences. In between, life happens. Maybe I just don't know enough about decision-making theory or psychology. I do believe common political and economic models are fatally flawed in their ability to depict behavior as they derive from two variables and a utility-maximizing populace. But there must be some way to get economics to grasp onto multivariate interrelationships of how business conducts and what matters.
So then, how many things matter? Not enough and too much! I'll take the easy way out and postulate that things matter.
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