How Not to Write on Economics

tions be understood only by those who already know so much of economics that they are in no need of an introductory text (his discussion of demand and supply, for example, as well as numerous other elementary concepts, are utterly unintelligible to the beginning student, aside from being illogically introduced in the third instead of the first part of the book). But the text also abounds in confusing and even contradictory uses of terms, in meaningless if not erroneous phrases entered for their effect rather than their profundity, and in outright errors. The result is a book which, though hailed as a classic, is perhaps the worst constructed elementary text to appear since 1946— or surpassed in this respect only by the first and second editions of the same text, over which it shows some minor improvements. Thus, the first edition, to convey the correct pronunciation of the term rentier, made it rhyme with the slightly frivolous word gay. Since this might presumably have irked the members of the Colony Club, the second edition rhymed it with the lovely month of May (p. 89). The third edition finally dropped the rhyme, but also much of the reason for retaining the term in the first place.

So repetitious are the book’s basic defects that only a few examples need be adduced to illustrate the over-all criticism. Though few things are more important to the novice in economics than a precise technical vocabulary, hardly a single term is defined in 734 pages of what should be an elementary text. By page 11 the author has thrown into the text such highly elusive terms as “institutions,” “national income,” “output,” “saving,” “investment,” “fiscal policy,” etc., without elucidating one of them. True, he gives them only as a preview, but nowhere later does he enlarge on their precise meanings. He operates, apparently, on the principle of the Berlitz School, by which meaning is supposed eventually to dawn even on the most untalented reader after a word has been used sufficiently often. By page 31 he has covered a number of intricate production concepts—this time no longer on a mere preview basis—and yet no term has been defined.

LK

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Leopold Kohr

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tions be understood only by those who already know so much of economics that they are in no need of an introductory text (his discussion of demand and supply, for example, as well as numerous other elementary concepts, are utterly unintelligible to the beginning student, aside from being illogically introduced in the third instead of the first part of the book). But the text also abounds in confusing and even contradictory uses of terms, in meaningless if not erroneous phrases entered for their effect rather than their profundity, and in outright errors. The result is a book which, though hailed as a classic, is perhaps the worst constructed elementary text to appear since 1946— or surpassed in this respect only by the first and second editions of the same text, over which it shows some minor improvements. Thus, the first edition, to convey the correct pronunciation of the term rentier, made it rhyme with the slightly frivolous word gay. Since this might presumably have irked the members of the Colony Club, the second edition rhymed it with the lovely month of May (p. 89). The third edition finally dropped the rhyme, but also much of the reason for retaining the term in the first place.

So repetitious are the book’s basic defects that only a few examples need be adduced to illustrate the over-all criticism. Though few things are more important to the novice in economics than a precise technical vocabulary, hardly a single term is defined in 734 pages of what should be an elementary text. By page 11 the author has thrown into the text such highly elusive terms as “institutions,” “national income,” “output,” “saving,” “investment,” “fiscal policy,” etc., without elucidating one of them. True, he gives them only as a preview, but nowhere later does he enlarge on their precise meanings. He operates, apparently, on the principle of the Berlitz School, by which meaning is supposed eventually to dawn even on the most untalented reader after a word has been used sufficiently often. By page 31 he has covered a number of intricate production concepts—this time no longer on a mere preview basis—and yet no term has been defined.