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A comment on There are 5,057 janitors in the U.S. with PhDs. Parent comment

Re:There are 5,057 janitors in the U.S. with PhDs by achompas on Friday October 22, 2010 @03:08PM (#1821024)
Economics doesn't assume everyone wants to maximize money. It assumes everyone wants to maximize utility, and then uses money as a (poor) proxy for utility. It's a subtle, important difference.
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Re:There are 5,057 janitors in the U.S. with PhDs by ghb on Friday October 22, 2010 @04:41PM (#1821419)
Serious question: what's utility?
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Re:There are 5,057 janitors in the U.S. with PhDs by achompas on Friday October 22, 2010 @05:34PM (#1821613)
Wikipedia calls it "relative satisfaction." I'd call it "personal benefit or gain."

Considering that, it's clear why we'd use money as a proxy. Not a perfect one, of course.

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Re:There are 5,057 janitors in the U.S. with PhDs by sprout on Friday October 22, 2010 @06:40PM (#1821805)
People want to maximize utility, we'll use money as a proxy, people want to maximize money. I suppose there are economic schools of thought that use other proxies for utility, but you seem to be agreeing with me insofar as the primary stand-in for utility is money, and it is a poor one.
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Re:There are 5,057 janitors in the U.S. with PhDs by achompas on Saturday October 23, 2010 @12:16AM (#1822611)
No, that was my exact point. In general, economics treats money and utility as distinct. I should've been clearer: money only proxies for utility in behavioral experiments.

Labor supply theory, for example, assumes people maximize utility by choosing a combination of work and leisure. It doesn't assume people work as much as possible (or, maximize their money).

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