“I enjoy doing lots of things that do not maximize my earning power,” they might protest. But as soon as we accept the premise that to be rational is to seek to maximize one’s utility – defined in terms of consumption, with money the way to maximize it – the economist’s logic wins.
看到这里，没学过经济学的人大概要咬牙切齿了。“我就喜欢干很多不能让我的赚钱能力最大化的事情，”他们也许会如此抗议。但只要他们接受一个前提，即理性是为了最大化你的效用——用消费衡量，而金钱则是消费最大化的手段，那么经济学家的逻辑就会胜出。