New York TIMES opinion / March 16, 2013 >> A Profession With an Egalitarian Core By TYLER COWEN
ECONOMICS is sometimes associated with the study and defense of selfishness and material inequality, but it has an egalitarian and civil libertarian core that should be celebrated. And that core may guide us in some surprising directions. Economic analysis is itself value-free, but in practice it encourages a cosmopolitan interest in natural equality. Many economic models, of course, assume that all individuals are motivated by rational self-interest or some variant thereof; even the so-called behavioral theories tweak only the fringes of a basically common, rational understanding of people. The crucial implication is this: If you treat all individuals as fundamentally the same in your theoretical constructs, it would be odd to insist that the law should suddenly start treating them differently. << more at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/business/the-egalitarian-tradition-of-economics.html Economic analysis is value-free, but has good values??? And Cowen assumes that there's only one perspective in economics? In any event, the money libertarianism that Cowen advocates _does_ treat all people as equal. Even when there are extremely large differences in wealth and power. As Anatole France wrote, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." Similarly, Cowen's economics sees each individual as equally likely to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and to steal bread, except that some people choose not to do so. These are the entrepreneurs, the secular saints of Cowen's economics. (Or are they truly "secular" in that this faith worships the Invisible Hand?) -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
