In his Modern Age piece, Callahan argues economists miss the value of contentment over endless consumption. Yet, economists understand trade-offs in personal choices, too. Many, including myself, choose lower-paying academic jobs over lucrative private-sector roles because we value the sense of meaning we achieve through our work. Furthermore, many of us will retire at some point; surely, the quest for “more and more” is not served by ceasing to earn income. Though some, like the excellent Walter Williams, joke that “if I should ever die, I want to have taught that day.” But in doing so, people like Williams demonstrate not their consumerist desires, but their great love for their craft of teaching.
Likewise, when Callahan criticizes Mike Munger for describing wealth as “the ability to obtain high quality, low cost products,” he again misses the mark. The implication is not that all people should always and everywhere zealously pursue maximizing their ability to buy more stuff. Munger is making the simple claim that, all else being equal, a person is wealthier when they can purchase more things. If we want people to have more access to the things that allow them to live healthier and wealthier (however they choose to define those terms), then we should eschew policies that make that more difficult. This is especially true of tariffs, which are widely recognized as being regressive in their application, even by members of the New Right such as Michael Lind.
[DBx: Just fyi, Walter Williams got his wish. He died suddenly, at the age of 84, only minutes after teaching the final session of his Fall 2020 PhD-level Microeconomics Theory I course at George Mason University.]
Brian Albrecht reflects on the value of Econ 101. A slice:
Everything comes down to a simple idea: if costs rise, prices tend to rise. If demand surges, prices tend to rise. These simple insights, drawn from the first pages of any econ textbook, go a long way toward explaining phenomena as varied as soaring egg prices, housing shortages, tariffs on imports, and New York City’s new congestion charge. This may seems trivial but an incredible amount of people don’t make the same prediction and many actively deny it when it happens.
Econ 101 won’t give us every answer, of course. As [Matt] Yglesias notes, “life is, of course, more complicated” than any basic model. But time and again, the basic supply-and-demand framework proves to be a reliable lens for predicting and interpreting market outcomes.
The Trump administration is trying to fix a market that isn’t broken—and in doing so, it risks breaking the parts that are working just fine.
Let’s hope that Kenneth Michael Sikorsky wins his case against a tyrannical local government.
Arnold Kling reviews Kathleen DeLaski’s Who Needs College Anymore?.
Beyond highlighting the differences between the old and the young, Smith makes a strong claim regarding the dignity of the old. He says that one’s treatment of the elderly indicates virtue: “The weakness of childhood interests the affections of the most brutal and hard-hearted. It is only to the virtuous and humane, that the infirmities of old age are not the objects of contempt and aversion.” It is easy to respond kindly to a child, but the virtuous response may not be natural. Sympathy transforms our natural inclinations and aversions, making it possible to move past a transactional approach to relationships.
