I enjoyed this post thoroughly - it was informative, intelligent and fun to read. Thanks. Those snippets from Keynes were highly topical - good ideas never expire.
I am working on a paper that discusses the role of public-private partnerships in food loss and waste mitigation. It is really about enhancing product quality and sustainability of the food system - safety and environmental integrity of food supply systems. I am arguing that the Porter’s value chain concept that promoted firm rivalry and competitive advantage is now outdated and the Porter’s latter work with Kramer on CSV, creating shared values, may be more relevant in viewing food supply systems as value networks.
As you have discussed in the case of the Internet, food supply is a public good while consumption has both private and public good aspects. That could then offer a way to identify appropriate roles for public and private investment, where the former is about capacity building and latter about product supply in meeting community and private consumer preferences for profit.
Given that all of us individually are a composite of our genetic make up and the experience we have gained from birth, all our preferences and beliefs have a ‘natural’ origin. They are related to our interactions with nature: molecules and atoms that represent the matter and the properties of intelligence or information that are distributed asymmetrically.
That makes choices difficult and anomalous with good of the society. Suffice to say that food loss mitigation, as with other externalities are contextual and public policies and private practices both need to evolve to drive change towards a dynamic optimum. The digital transformation- the bits and bytes that carry information, could become the basis of behaviour change. Your posts and those you share are part of that transformation.
I"m not sure I agree that the food supply is a public good — which is a technical idea relating to the technology of production. Food has low levels of 'public goodness' because it's rival and, for that reason as well as others, is excluded. If one person eats food, that's it for the food and if others want food, they've got to get other food.
That doesn't mean the public sector shouldn't be involved if, for instance, the market will deliver unsatisfactory outcomes, but that's not because food is a public good. It is that food is a necessity and in a market its price my outstrip the capacity of the poor to pay for it.
I agree that capacity building is, in principle different to market provision, but even if the public sector is financially well suited to capacity building, it may not be particularly good at other aspects of the task.
That video of a police chase (that you posted as a Note) was from Sweden, not America, and also is sped up by at least 50%.
Please take it down and issue a correction.
Hi NG,
I enjoyed this post thoroughly - it was informative, intelligent and fun to read. Thanks. Those snippets from Keynes were highly topical - good ideas never expire.
I am working on a paper that discusses the role of public-private partnerships in food loss and waste mitigation. It is really about enhancing product quality and sustainability of the food system - safety and environmental integrity of food supply systems. I am arguing that the Porter’s value chain concept that promoted firm rivalry and competitive advantage is now outdated and the Porter’s latter work with Kramer on CSV, creating shared values, may be more relevant in viewing food supply systems as value networks.
As you have discussed in the case of the Internet, food supply is a public good while consumption has both private and public good aspects. That could then offer a way to identify appropriate roles for public and private investment, where the former is about capacity building and latter about product supply in meeting community and private consumer preferences for profit.
Given that all of us individually are a composite of our genetic make up and the experience we have gained from birth, all our preferences and beliefs have a ‘natural’ origin. They are related to our interactions with nature: molecules and atoms that represent the matter and the properties of intelligence or information that are distributed asymmetrically.
That makes choices difficult and anomalous with good of the society. Suffice to say that food loss mitigation, as with other externalities are contextual and public policies and private practices both need to evolve to drive change towards a dynamic optimum. The digital transformation- the bits and bytes that carry information, could become the basis of behaviour change. Your posts and those you share are part of that transformation.
Thanks Thilak,
I"m not sure I agree that the food supply is a public good — which is a technical idea relating to the technology of production. Food has low levels of 'public goodness' because it's rival and, for that reason as well as others, is excluded. If one person eats food, that's it for the food and if others want food, they've got to get other food.
That doesn't mean the public sector shouldn't be involved if, for instance, the market will deliver unsatisfactory outcomes, but that's not because food is a public good. It is that food is a necessity and in a market its price my outstrip the capacity of the poor to pay for it.
I agree that capacity building is, in principle different to market provision, but even if the public sector is financially well suited to capacity building, it may not be particularly good at other aspects of the task.