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Might Ostrom be a socialist? She cites cooperation instead of competition for profit? Her background is in political science, not economics.
In fact, to their credit, both professors are social scientists, not economists.
"Both of these laureates have done work quite different from the more traditional, purely theoretical work that drives off of perfect markets, perfectly rational behaviour." Sounds more honest, doesn't it.
"The committee, in effect, said that [economic] theory was too simplistic and ignored the unstated relationships and behaviors that develop ...ways to resolve common problems. Both scholars have greatly enhanced our understanding of non-market institutions" other than government, the committee said."
"Non-market and non-government?" That would leave the culture, traditional institutions and wisdom of the people to study. Shades of grassroots bottom up democracy!
"Mr. Williamson's research found that when market competition is limited, firms are better suited for conflict resolution that markets."
Limiting market competition or "cornering the market' is what made John Rockefeller and the other great Robber Barons rich and powerful, and conflicts were seen as an opportunity to make money. It would appear that this Nobel jury has had it with so called "free' markets, supposedly allowing prices and capital to find their own level. Honest economists from Adam Smith on have always known these markets long not to be really free and competitive for the monopolies and cartels that inevitably form in the absence of government keeping the markets democratic.
"If we want to halt the degradation of our natural environment and prevent a repetition of the many collapses of natural-resource stocks experienced in the past, we should learn from the successes and failures of common-property regimes," the jury said. Wow, would that include revolutionary communist governments
"Ostrom's work teaches us novel lessons about the deep mechanisms that sustain cooperation in human societies," it added.
"Cooperation!" Choosing to highlight research into areas other that market economics provides some affirmation for the new indigenous grassroots economic democracies of Latin America, and not just an intended lesson for the still infinitely more powerful and far reaching economic plutocracies, now exposed as kleptocracies, that have recently fallen on hard times.
Che Guevara always stressed that the Cuban revolution learned from the deep natural non materialist motivation and noble, generous, respectful, humble, and non-encroaching-on-others joyous character of the peasants, pure in culture and uninfected with that self-preoccupation and wariness of one's neighbor taught in the capitalized society of the cities.
Guevara might have congratulated the Nobel Economics Jury for fostering the study of common culture, human cooperation and the organization and coordination of enterprise around a purpose higher than the accumulation of wealth.
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