SEMAINE D'ÉTUDE SUR LE ROLE DE L’ANALYSE ECONOMETRIQUE ETC.
08;
not necessarily the type of goods that are the easiest to produce.
Even if we supposed that consumers’ preferences were
such as to require a uniform expansion of production of all
commodities, there is no reason to expect that the composition
of production preferred by consumers should coincide with
‘he composition of production which technology would require
in order to achieve the maximum rate of uniform growth. If
‘hese two compositions do not coincide — as would always
be the case, except by a fluke — the composition according
to consumers’ preferences might evidently rank much higher,
in terms of individual utilities and welfare, than the composition
according to the voN NEUMANN criterion. The latter
would indeed yield a higher rate of overall growth. but many
commodities might remain unwanted.
Secondly, as has been argued in Chapter IV, the consumers
who enjoy an increasing per-capita income do not want
1 proportional increase of all the commodities they consume.
As soon as their demand for each commodity approaches sacuration,
they are bound to spend the incrasing income on
different goods. This leads us to a stronger conclusion than
‘he one reached above. The voN NEUMANN concept of maximum
rate of growth, if applied to a system with technical
progress, not only may not, but actually can never, correspond
— not even by a fluke — to the optimum pattern of growth,
…e., to the pattern of growth that consumers prefer.
Thirdly and finally, there is also the reverse side of the
coin. The von NEUMANN approach imposes on the system
‘he requirement that all commodities should grow at the same
rate. This is an unjustified restriction. There might well
be just one commodity in the system which is very difficult
to produce, in the sense that its production can only
grow very slowly through time. Now, in the voN NEUMANN
model, which insists on the requirement that all productions
must expand at the same rate, that commodity inevitably
10] Pasinetti - pag. 113
