Are Economists Good People? Should You Marry One?

There are good reasons to call economics the "dismal science." Economists, Steven Rhoads jokes, see a bittersweet quality in the groundbreaking of a new community center. They might brood: "By spending money here and not elsewhere, we give up the mobile heart units that would save four lives a year, a remedial reading program ... [etc., etc.]" (22). This may be technically true. But isn't this view of life a little ... inhuman? Rhoads approvingly quotes Kenneth Boulding: "No one would want his daughter to marry an economic man, one who counted every cost and asked for every reward, [and] was never afflicted with mad generosity or uncalculating love" (34). Czech philosopher Zdeněk Neubauer suggests something similar when he argues "price is unholy."¹ 

Economists are suspicious of single-minded devotion to single goals at the expense of others. Because opportunity costs are everywhere, they will usually emphasize marginal investments in projects rather than wholehearted commitment. This principle of marginalism encourages us to incrementally allocate scarce resources based on their marginal, not total value. I love waffles, but I don't enjoy the sixth one as much as the first one -- so ordering twenty for breakfast would be a mistake. A legislator who advocates for zero greenhouse gases is making a similar mistake: Eliminating the last 10% of carbon emissions comes with much smaller benefits and higher costs than eliminating the first 10%. A friend who drops out of college to pursue a career as a rock star may be making a similar mistake by following their dreams with a single-minded focus. This extra time spent on music comes with much higher costs than recreational playing.

This difference in approaches to life is similar to Isaiah Berlin's famous classification of intellectuals as foxes or hedgehogs, (probably) in reference to  a Greek proverb: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Berlin explains that hedgehogs "relate everything to a single vision" while foxes "pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory." In this taxonomy (admittedly twisted a bit for my purpose), economists are pretty pro-fox. Pursuing one end regardless of cost is often a sign that you'll misallocate scarce resources.² 

The Case Against Economists

One thing is clear: Francis of Assisi wasn't a proponent of marginalism. Neither were Thomas Edison or Michelangelo or Sir Ernest Shackleton. The Franciscan prayer pledges to "give and not to count the cost, to labor and ask for no reward." There is a spirit of heroism and humanity in these figures that the economic worldview seems to deride, and be all the poorer for it. As Tennyson's Light Brigade realizes, "Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die."³ Many of the most sacrificial people we know don't calculate that sacrifice is worth it -- they just don't calculate. Aristotle identifies this virtue of avoiding petty calculation as "magnanimity," or dignity of soul, and defines it as almost the opposite of the marginalist outlook. 

[Side note: many economists have almost no idea how to explain gift-giving using the economic model of human behavior. Gift-giving can be self-interested when we expect reciprocation or feel good about ourselves. Why, though, is hiding price tags such an important part of gift-giving? Why do we persistently believe that the most valuable parts of life are free? As Peter disgustedly tells Simon in Acts 8, "may your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!" Yet economists unironically decry "the deadweight loss of Christmas."]

Utterly devoted humans are inspiring and can change the world. As Rhoads admits, "a society without some single-minded people loses sight of an important aspect of human nobility" (35). How many economists consider nobility in their models? Here Rhoads takes part in the larger criticism that the humanities have for economists: human nature is too complex and too wonderful for a regression model to solve. Nobility, virtue, and courage defy quantitative measure, and they also resist attempts to explain them as self-interested.⁴

Certainly many economists are not as simplistic here as I pretend. Certainly many are. Take the thesis of University of Chicago economist Gary Becker in The Economic Approach to Human Behavior: "The economic approach is a comprehensive one that is applicable to all human behavior, be it ... large or minor decisions, emotional or mechanical ends [etc., etc.]." Becker advocated using marginal analysis to quantify and balance benefits and costs to explain all human behavior.

Christians, it could be argued, have a greater reason to reject the marginalist approach to the world than others. The central fact defining Christian ethics is the sacrifice of Christ -- "a ransom for many" that leads Paul to remind the Corinthians "you are not your own, for you were bought with a price." This sacrifice, Christians have long believed, should impel us to sacrifice our scarce resources for others without thought of cost or personal interest. This is the spirit that motivates missionaries, monks, protesters, and (gulp) crusaders. 

Tocqueville describes the work of Pascal as emblematic of this approach, who desired

to rally all the powers of his mind ... for the better discovery of the most hidden things of the Creator. When I see him, as it were, tear his soul from all the cares of life to devote it wholly to these researches, and, prematurely snapping the links that bind the life to the body, die of old age before forty, I stand amazed and perceive that no ordinary cause is at work to produce efforts so extraordinary. (qtd. in Rhoads 35)

It is easy to see, in the work of Pascal and others like him, the very best of the human spirit. Could we say the same about the work of economists?

The Case for Economists

In the rest of chapter 3, Rhoads offers a robust defense of marginal thinking in many spheres of our lives. Critically, politicians and other leaders have multiple duties to multiple constituents. This means they must, by definition, keep many diverse goals in mind. He explains: 

On occasion, statesmen may want to carve out some projects where they abandon nicely calculated less-or-more and do all they can. Give the artist or professional his head, and show what mankind can accomplish. Nevertheless ... marginalism must be one important part of a policy analyst's or statesman's perspective. The statesman's art is prudence or the use of reason and forethought to skillfully select and use the best means to achieve good ends. And for the statesman in peacetime the ends must be plural. Politics remains the architectonic art. The librarian, prison doctor, welfare dean, and occupational-safety expert still come to the politician with their competing claims for resources. The politician who distinguishes marginal and total utility will do a better job of judging these claims. (36)

Lawmakers shouldn't imagine, for instance, a choice between clean air or economic growth (pick one). Instead, they should recognize that theirs is a task of proportion and balancing. Politicians who advocate for "slightly dirty air" are unlikely to win votes or moral praise, but moral praise, Rhoads suggests, is what they deserve. It would be a moral failing to neglect half of a statesman's duties in favor of the other half -- particularly when the opportunity costs of a singular goal dwarf the marginal benefits of its fulfillment. 

Though Rhoads is most interested in showing how politicians must balance competing duties, the same must be said about almost all humans. Monks like St. Francis could be so single-minded because they renounced marriage, friends, family, and wealth. Many single-minded people also leave behind trails of devastation in their personal lives: neglected children, unaddressed debts, and mental health crises. Their fame and accomplishments are not free, but their profound personal failures may go unnoticed. Stories of single-minded heroes also obscure a legion of single-minded failures. 

This marginalist instinct is also built into many Biblical commands. The stewardship model laid out in Genesis requires prudence and cultivation -- virtues espoused in wisdom literature and arguably into the New Testament (Paul was also a tentmaker!). Joseph embodies this spirit when he advises Pharaoh to "look for a discerning and wise man ... [to put] in charge of the land of Egypt." Joseph then saves excess harvests for an upcoming famine, leading economist Tomas Sedlacek to name him the first recorded Keynesian (63). Many of the myriad prescriptions in the Pentateuch demonstrate a pragmatist sensibility. Solomon's Proverbs, too, constantly extol wisdom and prudence -- the famed Proverbs 31 woman is adept at managing scarce resources. 

So Are Economists Good People?

The answer, I think, is "usually." 

More accurately: Marginalism and opportunity costs are powerful tools that we should deploy often, but not always. This is the genius of the Sabbath: six days of labor, one day of rest. Sedlacek argues that the economic genius of the Torah is its balance between utility maximization and principle -- the happy medium between the Epicureans and Stoics (71). This bounded utility maximization encourages humans to seek maximum flourishing within limits like Sabbath and Jubilee which resist⁵ cost/benefit analysis.

There are similar insights in virtue theory. Prudence is the art of recognizing which virtues and skills are relevant to different areas of our lives. The virtue of liberality sits as a mean between wastefulness and stinginess. Any moral system with wisdom at the center will resist simplistic cost/benefit analysis, deploying it strategically instead at the right time and in the right way.

Rhoads thinks that economic education ought to include more Aquinas and less Rawls (my paraphrase, page 36). This is unlikely to come to pass as universities continue to frame economics as a mathematical discipline and not a part of the humanities. Perhaps when our institutions of higher learning abandon the philosophically absurd "fact/value" distinction, the "hard sciences" will return to their rightful place.

So, sure, marry an economist. But if they bring a calculator to the altar, you should probably be worried.
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1. qtd. in The Economics of Good and Evil, Tomas Sedlacek. pg. 138. Part of a larger discussion of how the New Testament's view of gifts contradicts most economic models.
   
2. Economic methodology is, theoretically, neutral about the ends that humans choose to pursue. Yet its project of quantifying human welfare intrinsically biases material satisfaction and will seek to constantly balance competing interests rather than suggest one.
   
3. Rhoads quotes both Tennyson and St. Francis (and Wordsworth in a similar vein) on page 34 -- but the attribution of this prayer to St. Francis (Google tells me) is likely apocryphal.
   
4. Economists might respond (as Becker does) that the benefits of utility can be roughly measured, if not exactly quantified, by human choices. We show how much we value virtue by our economic behavior, which also tells us the value of virtue. This, I think, is so foolish that only an economist could believe it, but a response is too long to fit here and will have to wait.
   
5. Many economists have argued that Sabbaths are ultimately good for economies -- which I suspect is true, but is beside the point. One wonders if Chick-Fil-A would really increase profits by opening on Sundays. See here and here for defenses of the Sabbath by economists.