ABSTRACT
When explaining firm behavior, economists naturally focus on what seems to be the most important features of economic reality to secure the building blocks for their models. In the case of Western firms, this has led to the postulation of such elements as production functions with their attendant properties, and the pursuit of maximization by firms as the motivating force that drives the determination of their behaviors. (The use of the term “maximization” here is intended to be quite general, covering both the long and short runs, and including the maximization or minimization of an appropriate objective function, with or without constraint, under conditions of either certainty or uncertainty.) Since it is not possible, given the limits of the experimental laboratory that economists have at their disposal, to confirm the veracity of such assumptions or even their implications (Caldwell [6, pp. 156-157], and Katzner [16, pp. 8-9]), they must, of necessity, be accepted on faith. That faith, however, is still justifiable in terms of the cultural heritage of the particular subjects under investigation.
