Alternative Organization Consumer Choice Self-Interest Small Groups Roger McCain's online textbook has an excellent discussion of the assumption of self-interest that is spread over three short pages: http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/Neoch/Eco111t.html http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/Neoch/Eco111t1.html http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/Neoch/Eco111t2.html Goals and Benefits Utility Functions Arnold Kling explains the economic concept of utility in his on-line book: http://arnoldkling.com/econ/markets/consumer.html Constraints and Costs The notion of cost is essential to economics: http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Enc/OpportunityCost.html The Budget Line This page from MIT lets you play with a budget line: http://plaza.mit.edu/econ/index.php?id=15 The Best Option The Maximization Principle One of my favorite authors, Steven Rhoads, explains why the marginal way of looking at problems is important: http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Enc/Marginalism.html The Equimarginal Principle The blurtit.com website seems to allow people to post questions, which others then answer. I have not found anything else that they have on economics, but they did have a short explanation of the equimarginal principle: http://www.blurtit.com/q870945.html   Web ingrimayne.com These links were checked on May 27, 2007 Copyright Robert Schenk