=================== HES POSTING ===================== 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]