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variations’, Keynesians’ were a redundant foray. Lucas ‘demonstrated that limited
information problems that did not imply price stickiness were nevertheless sufficient
to generate quantity variations even in the presence of complete price flexibility’.
Rational expectations concept of new neoclassical theory would then merely argue
that market equilibrium is substantially Walrasian in that entrepreneurs would be right
on to the degree of default in some askew information sheet collectively(Laidler
2006:34-6).
For Boyer, Lucas’ efforts are paradigmatic of the ‘Panglossian optimism’ in
mainstream economics. ‘Back in 1960s, the hope was to progressively generalize the
highly idealized and unrealistic model and converge towards a new formulation which
should be simultaneously grounded in clear axioms and representative of really
existing economies’. Alas, twenty years later, equilibrium theorists ‘had to recognize
that the removal of each seperate hypothesis opens a new economic world, highly
specific, which finally cannot be any more compared to other paths followed by other
scholars. Each realistic hypothesis opens a whole specturum of models, which are so
complex and rich in terms of results, that they cannot be pooled into a renewed
general equilibrium model’(Boyer 1996b:24). Thus, general equilibrium can only be
real when economy is indeed a Walrasian economy; that is, when there is indeed a
Walrasian auctioneer. In such a Walrasian economy, money is only an abstract unit of
account and ‘all transactions are centralised, and prices set, by an auctioneer’,
collective goods are redundant, contingent future markets are not a rarity etc.(Boyer
2001:66). However, ‘this optimum will be challenged or the market may totally
collapse under the weight of the following conditions: if the quality of goods is
uncertain and information asymmetric; if the technology derives from a learning by
doing and using process or from network externalities; if the auctioneer is replaced by
a complete decentralization of transactions in a monetary economy; if only a few
contingent markets or insurance mechanisms can be implemented; and when the
commitment of workers is related to the fulfilment of fairness criteria, i.e. if the equity
principle partially explains static and dynamic efficieny’(Boyer 1996a:103). But more
substantially, ‘Panglossian optimism’ is in fact a Panglossian fiasco largely because
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