The Business Man is not a True Economic Man

Abstract

‘When men act on erroneous impressions, it is the consequences of those acts which have to be reckoned with, and not the entirely differently consequences which might have arisen from acts founded on correct impressions.’¹ Now if anything is certain, it is that the attempt in the foregoing pages to trace the factors that influence price in the short period would completely fail to convince the ordinary business man. If the analysis has been correct in substance, then the business man’s ideas must be regarded as distinctly erroneous. But if the business man’s practice were in line with his theory, then the economist’s theory of what ought to happen would be valueless and the business man’s theory of what does happen would be correct.