January 31, 2006
LEISURE AS A FACTOR OF PRODUCTION IV
Life is excessively complicated
by the Sandwichman
The stories textbook authors tell are simple stories – the simpler the better.... Supply and demand are fictional characters added for pedagogical or ideological purposes. - David Colander
In his article, “On the Genesis of the Canonical Labor Supply Model,” Laurent Derobert (2001) mentioned Chapman’s theory in connection with Hicks’s description of it as “the classical statement of the theory of ‘hours’ in a free market...” Although Derobert rightly dismissed the Chapman analysis as a source for the canonical model, he overlooked the significance of Hicks introducing his so-called simplifying assumption. Whether intended by Hicks or not, it helped clear the way for the opportunity cost analysis and the butt-on-a-slide model because it papered over otherwise irreconcilable discrepancies and thus side-stepped a confrontation that could have revealed the inadequacy of the then as-yet-to-become-canonical approach.
Again, Derobert was technically correct when he argued, “there would be no use reproducing it [Chapman’s analysis] here,” but only to the extent that Derobert’s article was narrowly about the canonical butt-on-a-slide model and not broadly about the comparative merits of various theories of labor supply.
In the course of his very brief discussion of Chapman’s theory, though, Derobert blithely cast several unsubstantiated aspersions: that it more closely resembled an amalgam than a synthesis, that it became “excessively complicated,” and, most egregiously, that “it lies somewhere between Jevons’s analysis and the canonical model. (emphasis added)” The latter point is accurate only chronologically. Analytically, Chapman’s theory is not a step away from Jevons and toward the eclipse of labor in the canonical model. It is, rather, a further step in the qualitative direction and toward a more realistic treatment of labor. The canonical model is a big step back from Chapman.
Unquestionably, Chapman’s diagram -- which Derobert chided for its “over-abundant use of construction devices” -- suffered from trying to do too much all at once. But on the other hand, it was not intended as a snapshot of some sublime moment of equilibrium where the fictional characters, supply and demand, are viewed from a controlling perspective, consummating their mutual lust. It is more like a cubist composition, breaking up the subject matter and then re-assembling it in a way that shows multiple perspectives and positions in space simultaneously.
I'm not saying the diagram was self-consciously cubist. But it was produced in the same era as the pioneering works of Braque, Picasso and Duchamp. It seems to me (others may disagree) that the diagram "comes to life" when viewed juxtaposed to Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase.
(Compare Chapman's dynamic cubism to the static neo-classicism of the butt-on-a-slide model):
Notwithstanding my eccentric suggestion of a cubist rhythm in Chapman's diagram, its complicated appearance is not beyond remedy. It can be decomposed into four diagrams, each displaying a different but complementary facet of Chapman’s analysis. To the extent that Chapman’s analysis is “complicated’ or an “amalgam,” that might more constructively be laid to the nature of the problem Chapman was analyzing rather than any fault of his own.
But even that may be conceding too much. What is "simple" and what is "complicated" may have far more to do with expectations and conventions than the inherent clarity or difficulty of the subject matter. Who today would find the Duchamp painting particularly difficult, let alone scandalous? As Andre Breton cited Francis Picabia on a famous dada sandwichboard: «Pour que vous aimiez quelque chose il faut que vous l'ayez vu et entendu depuis longtemps tas d'idiots.»
Next: Queensland's summary of Sandwichman's synopsis of Chapman's theory.
Posted by sandwichman at January 31, 2006 01:10 PM