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[Moderator: I've almost started new threads several times during this discussion, but I
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In answer to Robin's comment ("Economics advanced when it was generally admitted that
utility was subjective"): In my view it depends on what you mean by "advanced".  In a
logical sense, yes that is all true, but if you want to conduct policy, some type of
interpersonal comparisons are necessary, which means that values play a role in all policy
discussions, and that we have to make sense of utility as something more. Cooter and
Rapaport in the JEL argued for a materialist welfare intepretation. Pigou integrated some
of the material welfare judgements into his "welfare economics" which he called realistic
economics--which he distinguished from the science of economics. Robbins said that Pigou's
work wasn't science, which it wasn't, but it was one way to do policy.  The attempt to do
economic policy without interpersonal comparisons led economics into a sterile welfare
economics. We are still trying to get out of it.
 
Dave Colander  
 
 
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