WHILE formal demonstration of the general theorem of second best' is, in substance, unassailable since, like other impossibility theorems,2 its negative corollaries rest securely on the posited absence of empirical limitations, it must be admitted that its forceful presentation several years ago disturbed us somewhat and carried just so much farther the process of disillusion with conventional welfare economics. Not that we had any right to be disturbed, for it is clear enough now that in talking of optimum conditions we were, in any case, saying precious little; no more, in fact, than (assuming the appropriate degree of differentiability in our functions) that a constrained maximum entails necessary conditions. This much being conceded, the second-best theorem does no more than point out that, if additional constraints are imposed, the necessary conditions for a maximum are in general more complex.3 The obvious corollary follows that, in order to identify a maximum position in these conditions, it is necessary to forsake the optimum conditions that are strictly relevant only to the simple case of a single and familiar constraint. It might seem proper then to say no more on the matter until a great deal more of information has been unearthed about the economic world we live in. But with welfare economics in the dumps now in consequence of several attacks in the last decade, those who have not yet abandoned hope will be prompted to scrutinize these theorems more closely if only with a view to setting limits to the gradual erosion of confidence in the subject. In regard to the second-best theory, for instance, we may admit that in general one can say nothing in the absence of universal optimization; further, that the vast and intricate knowledge required in order to derive quantitatively exact second-best solutions will be denied us in the foreseeable future. Yet we may still be able to indicate certain easily conceived conditions that permit us to say something useful; in particular we may be able to discover circumstances which enable us to derive guidance from the familiar optimum rules even though these rules are not universally met.