Hutt calls his work A Critical Restatement of Basic Economic Principles . Such a restatement was badly needed indeed. The main failure of Keynes and all his disciples and admirers is to be seen in the fact that they simply do not know what prices are, how they originate, and what they bring about. Prices come into existence by the eagerness of people to exchange one commodity or service against another commodity or service. They are the outcome of various individuals' readiness to buy or to sell.
Every price is the outgrowth of a definite constellation of demand and supply.
No price could ever be different from what it really was, because people failed to appear on the market at that time who were ready to bid a higher price, or who were ready to ask a lower price. The structure of prices reflects the state of the material conditions determining people's existence and the success of the endeavors made to satisfy the most urgent needs, as far as these material conditions make it feasible. All the government or a labor union to which the government has virtually delegated its power of enforcing orders by violent action can achieve is to substitute coercion for voluntary action. Then the spokesmen of the authorities point to the inefficiency of the market system and ask for more government meddling with the price system. The Market Economy Professor Hutt analyzes point by point all the alleged shortcomings of the free market about which people complain.