Michael Blowhard asks an interesting question:
How helpful is economics so far as explaining
the blogosphere goes? Here’s a flourishing, socially-significant field
of activity that’s undertaken by most of its participants without any
expectation of remuneration. Many of them do their blogging and
commenting under, ahem, fake names, thereby making not just money
scarce but real-life recognition nonexistent. The question isn’t just,
"Where’s the money?" It’s also, "Where’s the self-interest?" and "What
are the incentives?"
(Incidentally, and for what little it’s worth: I think economists
might very well be able to give an interesting economic account of
blogging, I just have my doubts about how well that account would stand
up as an explanation.)
These questions occured to me yet again on reading this LATimes piece about how some economist-bloggers are becoming blogosphere stars.
You’d think that this phenomenon — economists becoming stars in a
field that’s anything but money-driven — would have at least a few of
them taking fresh looks at some of their pet theories, wouldn’t you?
"Good lord! What to make of this!" — why aren’t more of them asking
themselves this question?
Why indeed? As one listed in that LA Times piece (last, which is the correct position I think) perhaps I can provide an answer?
Michael is assuming that economic theories rest upon the maximisation of monetary income. Given that, it is indeed extremely odd that practitioners of the dismal science would do something like blogging for no money (or pittances, certainly less than could be earned elsewhere).
However, extend that thought. Why would such people, who know how the world works, do such silly things like become a college professor? OK, it’s not that badly paid but it isn’t, with a very few exceptions, the route to a fortune. Why are they doing this silly research, publishing those papers that only 10 people (including their own mother) will ever read? Why aren’t they pounding out the Harlequin novels instead?
Could it actually be that such economists rather like doing research? Thinking about the world? The long vacations? The short work week? Even, perhaps, the respect of their peers?
Now, thinking of it this way we’ve actually divorced the motivation of people from purely monetary matters to something of a ragbag of bits and pieces here and there. Certainly, some people are more motivated by that cash than others, just as some simply want to strut the stage, play football, drink wine or, very strangely, become politicians.
Economists even have a word for this mixture of motivations. Utility. And it is that utility maximisation, not the maximisation of monetary income, that is at the heart of economics. Michael’s question, when looked at this way, doesn’t really make sense because he’s operating from a false (although widespread) premise. Economists don’t think that people do things (except for a few fortunately rare people) purely for money. They think people do things because they want to, because they make them feel good. That definition of what people want to do, makes them feel good, being different for different people.
Yes, there are some universals (sex, food, shelter etc and even then people put different weights on them. Some will pay for fine dining, others will forgo that pleasure for a bigger house etc.) and some decidedly odd, like blogging.
But once you get that we’re all talking about utility, not money, then an economist blogging makes perfect sense. Those who do it do it because it makes them feel good (for whatever complicated reasons it does so).
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