Forthcoming New Micro Text: It will be Free!

["Eric Nilsson" <enilsson@xxxxxxxxx>]

Existing mainstream textbooks for Principles of Microeconomics are stupid.

So, I've started to write my own textbook for my classes at CSUSB. It is
tentatively titled: Microeconomics: The Quest for Profits, the Use of Power,
and the Social Good.  Drafts of two chapters are now available. See below.

This text is very idiosyncratic; very few instructors elsewhere would likely
be interested in the whole book. Some, however, might find some chapters
useful for their classes.

Therefore - as of now - I propose to make this textbook available over the
Internet as, perhaps, the first "open source" economics textbook.

When I complete the first draft and post the text, you can feel free to
download chapters (or the whole) to use, edit, or modify as you like.

What's the deal with this? Well, any major modifications/improvements made
to the text should be sent to me so I can, at my choice, make these
changes/improvements available for downloading by others. And, I also will
ask that you e-mail me that you are using part/all of the text so I know
what "demand" there is for my product and, perhaps, to change parts that
people are not as interested in.

I've only written about 1/3 of the text. A first draft of the whole should
be done by December 2000.

The tentative chapters in the text will be (* indicates a draft of most of
the chapter exists):

Introduction
The Surplus*
A Survey of Different Economic Systems: Feudalism, Slavery, and Capitalism
Capitalism and the Social Good: An Overview
Profits and the Markup*
The Costs for a Business
Competition within an Industry*
Strategies to Boost Firm Profits*
The Dual Economy: The Core and the Periphery*
Costs, Prices, and Improved Products in the Dual Economy*
Demand and the Demand Curve*
Demand, Money, and the Social Creation of Wants*
Monopoly*
Oligopoly
Highly Competitive Markets
Supply and Demand in Highly Competitive Markets*
Wages and Power
Work and the Extraction of Work Effort from Employees
Technological Change
Capitalism and the Social Good
What are the Alternatives?
Conclusion

Over the years I have cut out in my courses most of the silly graphs that
appear in microeconomics. This might make the whole of the text not usable
to many instructors who have no choice but to teach the silly graphs. But
individual chapters might be useful to them.

I have uploaded two of my draft chapters. This is first draft sort of
material so don't expect anything wonderful. (But, for that matter, you
shouldn't expect the final product to be wonderful but it will be free. What
a country!)

You can find them at
http://economics.csusb.edu/faculty/Nilsson/enilsson.html. Look for the link
to Course Resources and click on "Economics 200."

Eric Nilsson
Economics
California State University, San Bernardino
San Bernardino, CA 91711
enilsson@xxxxxxxxx