I remembered a book of mine as soon as I woke up this morning: Building as an Economic Process.[1] The title is quite clever, too. In the context of the Austrian theory, the term “economic process” means that its outcome is not fully known before its completion. In many ways, it is my favorite professional book. After my morning ablutions, I searched for it on the World Wide Web, and I immediately came upon my festschrift from 2006.[2] One of the papers, written by Gerard de Valence, focuses on the book itself.[3] And here are his opening remarks:

Ranko Bon wrote Building as an Economic Process: An Introduction to Building Economics (1989) with a single, typically ambitious, aim. In the Preface he states: “my main purpose is to provide the foundations of a theoretical framework that will inform further development of building economics,” and this will be “a first step toward a consistent framework for an explanation of economizing in the building arena” (p. xiii).[4]

I smiled at the mention of my aim. Typically ambitious it certainly was. But the expression only accentuated my gloom. My favorite professional book is nowhere by now. With the exception of the paper cited, my colleagues in building economics have not only forgotten about it in the meanwhile, but they have never picked it up in earnest, either. As I have written in my response to the festschrift, it is but another failure of mine in the long string of failures.[5] Perhaps the only surprise of this morning’s recollections is the fact that I have not yet accepted my complete and utter irrelevance, both professionally and otherwise. Typically ambitious, to be sure.

Footnotes

1. Bon, R., Building as an Economic Process: An Introduction to Building Economics, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1989.

2. Festschrift for Ranko Bon, Construction Management and Economics, Vol. 24, No. 7, July 2006.

3. De Valence, G., “Building as an Economic Process: The Austrian Approach Revisited,” Construction Management and Economics, Vol. 24, No. 7, 2006, pp. 767-771.

4. Op. cit., p. 767.

5. Bon. R., “In Response to the Festschrift: A Letter to Construction Management and Economics,” Construction Management and Economics, Vol. 25, No. 4, 2007, pp. 341-343.