 In clarifying the view of rationality that characterizes economic agents, economists have for the most part continued to distinguish economics from other social inquiries by the content of the motives or preferences with which it is concerned. So even though people may seek happiness through asceticism, or they may rationally prefer to sacrifice all their worldly goods to a political cause, economists have supposed that such preferences are rare and unimportant to economics. Economists are concerned with the phenomena deriving from rationality coupled with a desire for wealth and for larger bundles of goods and services.