Russ Roberts

the respect of others.

And then he says something really extraordinary.

He says, because we care, because we want to feel important, because we want to matter, there are two ways to get there.

One is to pursue fame, wealth, and power.

Well, that's pretty primal.

Yeah.

The quieter path is to pursue wisdom and virtue, which he advocates for.

He says the pursuit of wealth is

Here's the person who wrote The Wealth of Nations.

He says the pursuit of wealth is a fool's game.

It's going to degrade you.

You're going to do things you're going to be ashamed of and that you'll want to hide.

Yeah, economic decision making is basically expected utility maximization, which is a fancy phrase for you do the thing that gives you the most pleasure relative to pain as best as you can anticipate it.

And of course, you make mistakes and things you thought were going to turn out well don't all the time.

That's not a rejection of economics.

But I think the essence of the economist approach is that we're constantly weighing the

our pleasure and pain on a daily basis and trying to project how we're going to feel about the decisions we make.

That's really not the nature of the life well lived.

It's not just about racking up utility points.

And I think economists often forget this.