A Tribute
Preface
1 The Economic Way of Thinking 1
2 Efficiency， Exchange， and Comparative Advantage 18
3 Substitutes Everywhere: The Concept of Demand 43
4 Cost and Choice: The Concept of Supply 73
5 Supply and Demand: A Process of Coordination 96
An Appendix: The Coordinating Roles of Money and Interest 109
6 Unintended Consequences: More Applications of Supply and Demand 120
An Appendix: Framing Economic Questions Correctly 141
7 Profit and Loss 153
An Appendix: Profiteering in Futures Markets 167
8 Price Searching 181
9 Competition and Government Policy 204
10 Externalities and Conflicting Rights 227
11 Markets and Government 253
12 The Distribution of Income 280
13 Measuring the Overall Performance of Economic Systems 304
An Appendix: Limitations of National Income Accounting 325
14 Money 335
An Appendix: What About Gold? 352
15 Economic Performance and Real-World Politics 358
16 The Wealth of Nations: Globalization and Economic Growth 393
Postscript: What Economists Know 420
Glossary 423
Index 429
內容試閱：
Good mechanics can locate the problem in your car because they know how your car functions when it isn’t having any problems. A lot of people find economic problems baffling because they do not have a clear notion of how an economic system works when it’s working well. They are like mechanics whose training has been limited entirely to the studying of malfunctioning engines.
When we have long taken something for granted， it’s hard even to see what it is that we’ve grown accustomed to. That’s why we rarely notice the existence of order in society and cannot recognize the processes of social coordination upon which we depend every day. A good way to begin the study of economics， therefore， might be with astonishment at the feats of social cooperation in which we daily engage. Rush-hour traffic is an excellent example.
Recognizing Order
You are supposed to gasp at that suggestion. “Rush-hour traffic as an example of social cooperation? Shouldn’t that be used to illustrate the law of the jungle or the breakdown of social cooperation?”
Not at all. If the association that pops into your mind when someone says “rush-hour traffic” is “traffic jam，” you are neatly supporting the thesis that we notice only failures and take success so much for granted we aren’t even aware of it. The dominant characteristic of rush-hour traffic is not jam but movement， which is why people venture into it day after day and almost always reach their destinations. It doesn’t work perfectly， of course. (Name one thing that does.) But the remarkable fact at which we should learn to marvel is that it works at all.
Thousands of people leave their homes at about eight in the morning， slide into their automobiles， and head for work. They all choose their own routes without any consultation. They have diverse skills， differing attitudes toward risk， and varying degrees of courtesy. As these passenger automobiles in their wide assortment of sizes and shapes enter， move along， and exit from the intersecting corridors that make up the city’s traffic veins and arteries， they are joined by an even more heterogeneous mixture of trucks， buses， motorcycles， and taxicabs. The drivers all pursue their separate plans， with an almost single-minded devotion to their own interests， not necessarily because they are selfish but simply because none of them knows in detail the plans of the others. What each one does know about the others is confined to a few observations on the position， direction， and velocity of a changing handful of vehicles in the immediate environment.
To this they add the important assumption that other drivers are about as eager to avoid an accident as they themselves are. Thereare general rules， of course， that everyone is expected to obey， such as stopping for red lights and staying close to the speed limit. That’s about it， however. The entire arrangement as just described could be a prescription for chaos. It ought to end in heaps of mangled steel. And sometimes it does—but that is the rare exception.
Instead we witness a smoothly coordinated flow， a flow so smooth， in fact， that an aerial view from a distance can almost be a source of aesthetic pleasure. It is guided as if by an “invisible hand.” There they are—all those independently operated vehicles down below， inserting themselves into the momentary spaces between other vehicles， staying so close and yet rarely touching， cutting across one another’s paths with only a second or two
separating a safe passage from a jarring collision， accelerating when space opens before them and slowing down when it contracts. Rather than anarchy and chaos， the movement of rushhour traffic， or indeed of urban traffic at any time of day， really is an astounding feat of social cooperation.
The Importance of Social Cooperation
Everyone is familiar with traffic but almost no one thinks of it as cooperative. We depend on processes of coordination for far more than what we usually think of as “economic” goods. Without institutions that encourage cooperation， we couldn’t enjoy the benefits of civilization. “In such a condition，” as Thomas Hobbes observed in an often-quoted passage of his book， Leviathan(1651)， “there is no place for industry， because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation， nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no
commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and， which is worst of all， continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man—solitary， poor， nasty， brutish， and short.”
Because Hobbes believed that people were so committed to self-preservation and personal satisfaction that only force (or the threat of it) could keep them from constantly assaulting one another， his writings emphasize only the most basic form of social cooperation: abstention from violence and robbery. He seems to have supposed that if people could merely be induced not to attackone another’s persons or property， then positive cooperation—the
kind that actually produces industry， agriculture， knowledge， and art—would develop of its own accord. But will it? Why should it?
How Does it Happen?
How do people encourage one another to take precisely those complexly interconnected actions that will eventually produce the multitude of goods and services that we all enjoy? Even a society of saints must use some procedures for inducing positive cooperation of the right kind if the life of each saint is to be more than “solitary， poor， nasty， brutish， and short.” Saints must， after all， somehow find out exactly what ought to be done and when an where it ought to be done before they can play an effective part in helping others.
Three hundred and fifty years have passed since Hobbes examined society. Hobbes probably failed to see the importance of this question for understanding life in the “commonwealth” because the society he knew was far simpler， more bound by custom and tradition， and less subject to rapid and disruptive change than the societies in which we have grown up. Not until well into the eighteenth century， as a matter of fact， did any significant number of thinkers begin to wonder why it was that society “worked”—that individuals pursuing their own interests， with extremely limited information， nonetheless managed to produce not chaos but a remarkably ordered， productive society.
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