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From:
[log in to unmask] (Robin Neill)
Date:
Fri Mar 31 17:18:53 2006
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Surely:  
  
        The  first principle of economics, and the presumption of utility   
maximization on the part of individuals, were never intended as a   
description of the essence of what it is to be human, and they are not   
such a description.   They constitute a critique of human behaviour.    
That is,  they constitute a construction put on human behaviour so that   
it can be fitted into a means/ends system based on the judgement that   
efficiency, that is getting the most for the least, is to be taken as a   
norm.  
  
        The assertion that Economics is faulty, because it does not   
describe the whole of human experience and existence, is a fallacy.    
Economics does not pretend to explain everything.  Of course, it is   
often badly taught, and, unfortunately, students get the impression that   
it does so pretend.  
  
Robin Neill  
  
 

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