Demand: Untold

Economists like to brag about their demand and supply theories. For example, they claim there is a law of demand, with the negative relation between price and quantity. But can they derive such relation? Some use utility or indifference curve to derive one, but from the same basis one can also derive a positive relation. Is the positive line still a demand? During a conversation with a journal editor, when I put forward this counter-example, he became very angry and said: “Then, I would simply draw a negative line for demand.” That is the conduct of most economists, which Joan Robinson called “sloppy” habit. This book will single out many such sloppy economists and show the consequence of their arbitrary demand.