Can we deduce the the supply and demand curves in terms of opportunity cost assuming only declining marginal utility of consumption? (I.e. without assuming increasing marginal labor cost of production.)
I think it can (and perhaps it's already been done), but I haven't seen it done and I don't think I yet have all the right mathematical tools to derive it. Perhaps a reader who has better math than me could help?
Declining marginal utility of consumption means basically that to obtain the first widget, which takes three hours* to produce, I might forego the last doodad, which takes one hour to produce. To obtain the second widget I will not, however, forego the second-to-last doodad, but I might forego the last thingamabob, which takes two hours to produce.
*of abstract labor time
Given fixed marginal labor time of supply (it takes x hours to produce one more of any good at any quantity) but declining marginal utility of consumption, what is the overall equilibrium price of each good in an economy?
[T]he superstition that the budget must be balanced at all times, once it is debunked, takes away one of the bulwarks that every society must have against expenditure out of control. . . . [O]ne of the functions of old-fashioned religion was to scare people by sometimes what might be regarded as myths into behaving in a way that long-run civilized life requires.
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