Friday, March 24, 2006

Triumph of the Individual

Don Boudreaux has a great article today on "methodological individualism", the foundation for much of economic thinking and insights:

Whatever the topic -- war, economic growth, government regulation -- the only way to achieve genuine understanding of what's going on is to trace all actions back to the individuals who take them. The fact that individuals often act in concert -- say, as voters -- still requires those of us seeking to understand the outcomes of elections to understand the incentives and the constraints that confront the individuals who make up these groups.
This is a very non-intuitive concept to many people (it was for me when I first learned about it). Dr. Boudreaux's article is one of the clearest treatments of this broadly applicable and very powerful concept.

Read this article! It is well worth your time.

Hattip to Arnold Kling.

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