The mathematical methods of the [economics] profession are actually metaphors that serve as both a tool of persuasion and a powerful barrier to entry against speakers of plain English. The metaphors are not neutral, as has long been assumed; some, such as the “invisible hand,” Adam Smith’s mechanism by which an individual acting in his or her own interest is also helping the community, are subtly ideological. Others, such as the more startling metaphors of Gary Becker, who has likened children to durable goods because, like houses, they are “expensive to produce and maintain” and, like refrigerators, “they have a poor secondhand market,” are explicitly utilitarian. The power of economists rests on the rhetoric. It’s not that their arguments are necessarily right analytically; it’s that they’re persuasive.
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