Book Project

Meaningful Economics

In production with Oxford University Press

Economics has a problem—the discipline cannot distinguish the causes of human action from the consequences of human action. Economists deal with matters of fact, not with feelings and morals. They model representations of optimal agents, not flesh-and-blood human beings in ordinary life. By assuming that incentives and self-interest are sufficient to explain economic activity, economic science proceeds as if the human mind does not matter. But the origins of our actions—ideas—do indeed matter. They make us human. 

In Meaningful Economics, Bart Wilson challenges economics to directly engage human beings as we really are, not as economists ideally assume. He argues that economic science is as much about purposes and human values as it is about incentives. Moreover, Wilson shows how the outcomes of our decisions—their costs and benefits—and the origins of our decisions—our motives and goals—can be understood in an integrated way.

Over the course of the book, Wilson develops a framework that connects the origins of human action to the outcomes of human action, explaining human conduct with causes and effects. He then uses that framework to show how three basic principles of economics—trade, specialization, and property—require meaning, values, and purpose. With a fresh perspective and novel theoretical framework that bridges economics and ethics, Meaningful Economics explains the roots of human conduct and its economic effects by grounding a science of economics in the moral sentiments that prompt human beings to act.

Working Papers

The Conceptual Semantics of “Money” and “Exchangeable Value of Goods” in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations

With Gian Marco Farese

This paper examines the conceptual semantics of two keywords belonging to the English vocabulary of economics discourse, money and value (intended as exchangeable value of goods), as originally theorized by Adam Smith in Chapter IV of the Wealth of Nations. It is argued that a semantic investigation of the original conceptualization of these words is helpful to resolve various interpretive misconceptions in modern economics and, concurrently, favors a better understanding of three fundamental principles of economics discussed by Smith in this Chapter. In particular, the present analysis elucidates the meaning of money intended as the universal instrument of human transactions and the polysemy of value in the so-called “water-diamond paradox”. The analysis demonstrates that these meanings are characterized by a high degree of semantic and conceptual complexity. Three semantic illustrations of the fundamental principles of economics concerning money and value are produced with the Natural Semantic Metalanguage methodology.

Humanomics and Human Action Explanations of Why Human Beings Divide Their Labor

Modern economics, whether in the orthodox tradition of Paul Samuelson or the heterodox tradition of Ludwig von Mises, ultimately looks to explain economic outcomes, that is, the effects of human action. In their own way, neither distinguish the consequences of human action from the origins of human action, and neither have any truck with ethical valuations and moral judgments as part of their modern subjective theory of value. If economics is to be about flesh-and-blood human beings, and why we do what we do, then we need an analytical framework that considers human action in its origin, rather than in just its outcome. Following Adam Smith’s lead, I explain the division of labor with a humanomics account that is moral all the way down.

Sympathy with Resentment: Willingness to Report Criminal Behavior Depends on the Punishment

With Jason Aimone, Lucas Rentschler, and Vernon Smith

Adam Smith's theory of justice holds that the appropriate punishment for a misdeed is determined, in part, by the sympathy elicited on behalf of the victim. Specifically, Smith states that: "...our first approbation of punishment is not founded upon the regard to public utility which is commonly taken to be the foundation of it...it is our sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer which is the real principle" (Smith, 1978, p 475). To demonstrate this point Smith relates an anecdote in which civilians were unwilling to inform on offenders, because the punishment was far too extreme. In this paper, we employ laboratory experiments to investigate whether the willingness to report a crime diminishes when the severity of the punishment is dramatically elevated. Our findings reveal, as predicted by Smith, that a steep increase in the severity of the punishment indeed reduces the likelihood of individuals reporting offenders. Interestingly, this effect is not foreseen by potential offenders, who, in response to the heightened punishment, diminish their inclination to commit an offence.