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Non-Economic Values

Economics is not a value in and of itself. It is only a way of weighing one value against another. Economics does not say that you should make the most money possible. Anyone with knowledge of firearms could probably make more money working as a hit man for organized crime. But economics does not urge you toward such choices. What lofty talk about “non-economic values” usually boils down to is that some people do not want their particular values weighed against anything. If they are for saving Mono Lake or preserving some historic building, then they do not want that weighed against the cost – which is to say, ultimately, against all the other things that might be done instead with the same resources. For instance, how many Third World children could be vaccinated against fatal diseases with the money that is spent saving Mono Lake or preserving a historic building? We should vaccinate those children and save Mono Lake and preserve the historic building—as well as doing innumerable other good things, according to this way of looking at the world. Just another reminder that economics is the study of the use of scarce resources that have alternatives. Even if we refuse to make a choice, circumstances will make choices for us, as we run out of many important things that we could have had, if only we had taken the trouble to weigh alternatives. Saving Lives Few things have saved as many lives as the simple growth of wealth. An earthquake powerful enough to kill a dozen people in California will kill hundreds of people in some less affluent country and thousands in a Third World nation. Greater wealth enables California buildings, bridges, and other structures to be built to withstand far greater stresses than similar structures can withstand in poorer countries. Those injured in an earthquake in California can be rushed more quickly to far more elaborately equipped hospitals with larger numbers of more highly trained medical personnel. This is just one of innumerable ways in which wealth saves lives. The Market What distinguishes “the market” as economists use the term are (1) individual free choice and (2) the guidance provided by prices which result from millions of people interacting with one another as they exercise that free choice. To say “the market decides” is only to say that these millions of people decide. It is people making their own choices. Unmet Needs If economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses, then it follows that there will always be unmet needs. Merely demonstrating an unmet need is not sufficient to say that it should be met—not when resources are scarce and have alternative uses. By its very nature, as a study of the use of scarce resources that have alternative uses, economics is about incremental trade-offs—not about “needs” or “solutions.”
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