I’m studying perfect competition now in class (well I’ve read the chapter in the textbook, I haven’t got there in class) so I was wondering whether anybody is aware of first what to read that support the theory of perfect competition and secondly an Austrian refutations of it. I’ve read Rothbard’s section in MES concerning PC but is anybody aware of any other works by Austrians that address this? I’ve got through Mises.org in search but all I’ve found is a Reisman article (which I’ve not read yet).
Dominick Armentano most likely addresses it in his books on antitrust. It’s a piss poor theory, so it doesn’t take much to knock it down.
-Jon
There’s an essay on it in Hayek’s Individualism and Economic Order isn’t there?
Probably.
-Jon
Well, the section in Sloman’s book is most poor (as is the book in general though,). So I guess I’m going to have to find a better explanation of it elsewhere.
When I was at Mises U in 2005 DiLorenzo gave a great presentation on this. Here are a couple of links but you might try looking for more of his stuff on this topic:
Thanks a lot.
It is not so much of a theory as it is a simplifying assumption that is useful in certain models that compare markets with different levels of competition. Although, I do admit it is very much overused, and inappropriately at that, in undergraduate economics.