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Isn't "efficiency" also merely a situation _defined_ as the outcome of the 
vaunted formalist view?  So market systems are best, i.e. efficient, because 
we define it that way.  Ergo any other possible organization of society is, 
by definition, inefficient.  So we're baaack to the Ricardian view of 
Economic Development: becoming more like Britain, or now, the U.S.  This 
simplifies Comparative Economic Organization courses. 
 
And why have we been so taken with the myth of scarcity?  Has there been 
real scarcity since the close of the 19th century?  I don't see scarcity in 
the US, or the world in point of fact, though I do see a teeeny weeeny bit 
of disparity in the distribution of income and wealth.  Scarcity is again, 
the result of a definition: we are all greedy grasping creatures destined to 
live our lives in the mall, buying, buying, buying: unlimited wants, don't 
you know.  Really, now. 
 
Isn't the new "formalist" view of things a way of gagging those who would 
ask _real _ economic questions under the guise of "positive" economics?  If 
you read economics texts from the 1870's into the 1940's don't you find them 
a lot more interesting?  Do economics students today really learn much at 
all of the actual conditions of economic life, as the original AEA 
proclaimed its purpose?  Pardon me for digressing, I'm tired.  Larry Shute 
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Laurence Shute                          <[log in to unmask]> 
Department of Economics                 Voice: 909.869.3850 
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona 
3801 West Temple Avenue                  FAX: 909.869.6987 
Pomona, CA  91768-4070, USA 
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