I’ve written a lot about economists who elbow their way into other fields — economic imperialists, they’re sometimes called. Allen, who is not an economist, has a lot to say about economists in her new book, and it’s mostly not positive. “Justice is therefore best, and perhaps only, achieved by means of democracy,” she wrote in the opening pages of the new book. Measuring utility “effectively requires that we convert preferences into something arithmetic,” Allen wrote. Citing her Harvard colleague Dani Rodrik, an economist, and others, Allen wrote that it makes more sense to build an economy that doesn’t produce massive inequality in the first place.

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Persons: Allen, can’t, ”, ” Allen, aren’t, Glen Weyl, it’s, Weyl, Dani Rodrik Organizations: Microsoft Research