Economics: An Alternative Introduction

Most people who study economics are introduced to a model which understands economic activity as based upon the constant desire of the "economic man" to maximize his welfare. As a result it is held that economic behavior can be reduced to a series of graphs in which supply and demand are brought into harmony. The economy is seen as akin to a gigantic machine. In this book Thomas Storck challenges this economic model in two ways. He points out that this understanding of economics fails to recognize the complexities of human behavior, and moreover insists that economic activity has a moral dimension based on the inherent purpose of the economy as something which is meant to serve society, not dominate it. Storck contrasts his approach with that of the late Nobel Prize winner in Economics, Paul Samuelson, and by means of frequent quotations from Samuelson the book becomes a lively dialogue between two fundamentally different approaches to understanding economics.