A certain prof. in our dept. keeps yelling at us in between classes ('cos we're so distracted...read sleepy)...she tries to seem nonchalant about it and tries to pretend that she's treating us like "adults" (yeah, the eco slogan of protest) and tells us that we have a "choice" to make. According to her, the "market's extremely competitive" & if we don't buck up, "we'll be thrown out of the market". According to her, "thanks to globalization...we can no longer afford to be like our grandmother's generation...we can't hope to be content getting married and raising 2 kids...'cos even our future husbands will expect us to earn and pay the EMIs for the (to-be) apartment..."
Well, with all due respect, I'm sure she's absolutely right...but, if we're to assume "perfect competition" outside an educational institution, should'nt it exist inside it as well? Now, that set me off to thinking about it and here's what I've come to believe...
What are some of the salient features of perfect competition? Yes, we all know you know it...it's free entry and exit of consumers & producers, existance of multiple buyers & sellers, perfect information in the hands of the consumer (so that he can make an informed, rational decision), and all units of the goods sold are homogeneous ( if there's no difference, people can easily switch over to other products thus, aiding perfect cmpetition by forcing firms to be in pure, absolute competition and to be "price-takers" & not "pice-makers").
Now, for the purpose of simplicity, ceterius paribus (ok that term was not really reqd., but it's the only thing that'll continue to haunt me even after 3 years!)...let's take our beautiful dept. and test these conditions...
1. Existance of multiple buyers (students) & sellers(teachers)...True
2. Perfect information in the hands of the buyers...Umm, given the fact that they keep tricking us with the false lure of attendance on non-working days and make us come for tedious seminars (of course, there are some exceptions where the speaker does turn out to be good) and the like, I'd say the condition stands invalidated!
Note: A lecturer once asked us(in jest, of course) what the "opportunity cost" of attending these seminars were...well,Ma'am, the opportunity cost is great enough to warrant an entire study! Just think about it, it means a couple of hours of sleep lost in the morning, dis-utility in the form of apprehension and the cribbing(during the preceeding week) about the sleep to be lost and the boredom to ensue, and the dis-utility caused due to anxiety arising from the realization of the amount of piled up pending work, that couldn't have been completed on that half a day! Now, that's a thought for the welfare economists who say that welfare is reached by "maximum happiness for maximum numbers"...so, by that logic "maximum unhappiness for maximum nos" would cause a situation of what? I shall leave you to figure that out...for the time being I've digressed enough, time to return to my argument..
3. Completely homogeneous products- Ever compared a Fiscal lecture hour to say, an applied stats/monetary class? Thus, the null hypothesis (that there's no significant difference between the products) is false!!! (Ya Ya, I did actually learn at least 1 thing after 3 sems of App. Stats/Econometrics and Computer Applications in Eco.)
4. Free entry & exit- Do we get to stroll into class whenever we want...No, not as long as (like sane Stella Marians), we're pursuing that 'Holy Grail' in every Stella Marian's life- attendance! So, there's no free entry. Now, how many times do u remember wanting a gate pass desperately, only to be rejected one...so, surprise surprise, there's no free exit as well! (That ought to explain all the scaling over/jumping over boundary walls that we partake in)
So, that condition also, does not apply to our dept!
5. Perfect Competition among the buyers & sellers- College Day just got over---enough said!
So, now 4 conditions out of 5 don't apply, leading me to believe that if perfect competition and the free market mechanism actually prevailed in our college...our dept. should have been thrown out by the market mechanism...which, my past 5 sems' marksheets (glaringly) tell me hasn't happened...so, either the dept. of economics is not very economic or the market is not so cruel...if a non-perfectly competitive dept can survive in this so-called "perfectly competitive market environment", their uneducated, non-competitive & soon to be unemployed students, will also scrape through!
Note: For those friends of mine who're going through the early-life career/education crisis...don't worry, there's still hope(albeit, in the form of 'wedded bliss') ! *cheeky grin*
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