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The article presents the author's comment on the folklore of institutional economics. The article asserts that orthodox theory, as a designation of professional thought, can mean no more than the body of thought held in common by most economists. The texts most frequently used today reveal it as the type of price and distribution theory, initiated by Alfred Marshall and modified by Edward Chamberlin, Joan Robinson and others. Designating institutional thought is somewhat more difficult. Institutionalists explain that the term itself is a misnomer, that institutions reflect what they are trying to get away from. Further difficulty lies in the fact that the school is "trichotomized," there being the wing represented by John R. Commons, the wing represented by Wesley C. Mitchell, and the Darwinian wing represented by Thorstein Veblen. The thesis of this paper is that institutional economics is founded on faith, which it misrepresents as objectivity, that certain of its criticisms of orthodox theory are irrelevant or unprovable, and that its principal criticism of orthodoxy is directed at a theoretical position not generally held in orthodox thought today.

The article highlights the concept of political economy coined by well-known socio-economist Horace Greeley. Historians of economic thought, in customarily appointing Henry C. Carey dean of the American School, have generally neglected the high spokesman of discontent, Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the "New York Tribune." Horace Greeley's life and political economy stand out as clearer expressions of a young America in its middle period transition. Greeley was an awakened figure of his time. Never the totally eccentric dreamer he is frequently considered, he found himself aware that narrow parochialisms were breaking up, and he aimed to conform society to the changes under way. He saw his country as the great chance for righting wrongs- and he wished to make it a proving ground for social experimentation. Thus, he devoted his life and his paper to teaching the people to seek freedom by building a wealthy nation in which resources should be correctly utilized and special privileges should be destroyed.

The article presents information on an unpremeditated symposium on the economic theory of Clarence E. Ayres. The article argues that Ayres and the Tower on the campus of the University of Texas are two of the dominant features of the academic landscape in the Southwest. Both have been centers of controversy, ranging in intensity from mild to boiling. It seems that few who have considered either have escaped partisan reaction for, or against. The article informs that this issue of the "Southwestern Social Science Quarterly" deals with four examinations of Ayresian economic theory, which range from bitter attack to capable defense, with a note of mildness in between. Together, they should give the reader a fairly complete view of this scholar's ideas. These papers were not solicited, and there was no idea of a symposium on Ayresian theory, when the first of the four, that by Jack Robertson was received. This paper was soon followed by that of Manuel Gottlieb. Both were highly recommended for publication by economists respected for their competence in the field.