Comment on The Difference Between Utility and Utility

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:41:56 GMT

This is what economists are trying to do now. Yet, implicit in their advice are normative economic principals that comprise the set list of X: Full employment, lower inflation, lower taxes, higher revenue etc...Obviously whoever wants x is normatively seeking a solution. As a result the analysis must then also and it is implicit in the formulation.

I can mostly agree with you. How one chooses to a discipline is inevitably normative. This leaves only a slight difference in how we describe the process, which side of definition we put the 'normative' on.

The economists themselves may have no feelings one way or another but they are using the economic and statistical principals toward normative ends, even if they are not their own. This is why I found the economic discipline so frustrating. Everyone want's to be a human calculator, forgetting that they are being used to solve someone else's philosophical dilemma.

I share that frustration. Economists in particularly should be expected to be able to trace how the motives play out through a system. That more or less is microeconomics.

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