From The Conversable Economist, August 16:
Here’s a comment from Lant Pritchett in an interview last June. He was asked: “What is the role of an economist?” He answered:
The thing I like most about the field of economics is that it is still mostly people who are open to empirically grounded discussions of problems in which you’ll acknowledge what the facts are and alternative approaches to modalities of making the facts different.
Then the other thing … I don’t really teach undergraduates very often, but I was invited to give the opening lecture to a development economics course of undergraduates. My take was that economics is the social science of love. It’s the truly loving social science, and what I meant—and they were, of course, like, “What? Economics and love? That’s crazy.” But think about what economists do. We take individuals—objective functions are objective functions. We don’t start with any premise about what would be good for society or good for X or good for Y.
But I think economists, when they’re doing it right, they start from, what is it that people want to accomplish with their lives? Okay. Let’s think about what the actual outcomes are. Let’s think about modalities at the society, political, market level that would facilitate individuals achieving their objectives more or less. And what could be a better description of love than “I’m going to take—what you want is what I want for you, and I’m going to help you achieve that.” Economics is the loving social science, is my take on what economists do best.
I speak from personal experience when I say that perhaps the professional advantage of economists is not greatest in discussions and definitions of love....
....MUCH MORE
Possibly related:
This tale is said to be told by John Kenneth Galbraith on himself. As a boy he lived on a farm in Canada. On the adjoining farm, lived a girl he was fond of. One day as they sat together on the top rail of the cattle pen they watched a bull servicing a cow. Galbraith turned to the girl, with what he hoped was a suggestive look, saying, "That looks like it would be fun."She replied, "Well.... She’s your cow."
