These wonderful American textbooks

These "wonderful" American textbooksExtrait du Autisme-Economie.orghttp://www.autisme-economie.org/article145.htmlThese "wonderful" Americantextbooks- Les Textes - English Texts - Texts from the movement - Date de mise en ligne : 2000Autisme-Economie.orgCopyright © Autisme-Economie.org Page 1/4These "wonderful" American textbooksEverybody praise the recent US textbooks on "the principle of economics" published by leading authors such asMankiw and Stiglitz. In fact, everybody appreciate these manuals because they are very clear and use very littleformalisation. Colours, photos and abstracts from newspapers articles illustrate these lively books. But what is theirpurpose? It is to convince the reader that there is a specific kind of reasoning, called "economic reasoning", which isquite simple to grasp and has general validity. All it takes is a little effort. This economic reasoning has two pillars: the"law of supply and demand", which everyday life is supposed to give evidence for, and the proposal that the market isan efficient system - i.e. a mechanism which generally allocates resources in an optimal way. This proposal ispresented as a result, in its mathematical sense, not as a statement or an a priori belief. But since the textbooksconsidered are very simple, the proof of the result cannot be given: it is merely evocated, through lively images,among which the inescapable "invisible hand".Of course, everybody knows that economists very often ...