The Property Right Paradigm
- 1 March 1973
- journal article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in The Journal of Economic History
- Vol. 33 (1) , 16-27
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050700076403
Abstract
Economics textbooks invariably describe the important economic choices that all societies must make by the following three questions: What goods are to be produced? How are these goods to be produced? Who is to get what is produced? This way of stating social choice problems is misleading. Economic organizations necessarily do resolve these issues in one fashion or another, but even the most centralized societies do not and cannot specify the answer to these questions in advance and in detail. It is more useful and nearer to the truth to view a social system as relying on techniques, rules, or customs to resolve conflicts that arise in the use of scarce resources rather than imagining that societies specify the particular uses to which resources will be put.Keywords
This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- The Rise and Fall of the Manorial System: A Theoretical ModelThe Journal of Economic History, 1971