Procrustean Art of Backtracking: “Leisure vs. Consumption”
A few premises from the ABC of economics:
1) Demand
is for the marginal benefit at the marginal cost of a price in a defined currency unit.
2) Supply
is for the marginal benefit of a price
at the marginal cost of production in the currency unit.
3) A
price is set between the buyer aka demander and the seller aka supplier.
4) “The
price” of “equilibrium” is imaginary
and by definition metaphorical.
Amazingly, graceful or surprising,
macroeconomists propose as follows:
1) <Figure 13-4> As
Wages Rise, Workers May Work Fewer Hours.
… Because at higher wages workers can afford more leisure … (Samuelson and
Nordhaus, Economics, 19th
ed., p.252).
2) The
essence of the time-allocation problem is the trade-off between leisure and
consumption (Gregory Mankiw, Principles
of Economics, 6th ed., p. 455).
3) Figure
14 in (op cit. p. 456)
Panel
(c) a map of very idiosyncratic indifference
curves only to justify:
Panel
(d) a curve of working fewer hours at higher wages
Facts, whatever may
they preach:
1) Leisure
is an essential part of our life 24 hours per
day. Leisure includes Sally’s “riding her bike, watching television, and studying
economics” (op cit. p. 455).
2) All
through human history, we spend incomparably more hours for consumption of services
also called “leisure” than those for consumption of goods. No wonder, three
quarters of the US GDP comprises of “leisure.”
3) The
rest of us are never stupid enough to work fewer hours at higher wages if in paradigm
of the market.
4) The
vast majority hours out of “leisure” as in 1) might well be accounted for investment in the “human asset,” as it
were.
5) We
prefer “quality in value of life” to value-free GDP of “real quantities,” period.
No
wonder, two millennia and a half ago Confucius famously preached to would-be
masters (君子, jūnzǐ),
“Thou shalt first get the names correct (正名, zhèngmíng)!”
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