Michael Lissack of opportunity costs, the impetus is always there for us to keep working. Lurking in the back of our minds is the likelihood that if we don't, surely some one else will. The reason, I suspect, that economists have so much trouble teaching their students about opportunity costs is that the students don't naturally put a price on everything they do, and are inclined to resist the encourage- ment to do so. It reflects not a lack of understanding but a lack of agreement with the economists' way of looking at the world. Economists don't see it this way, because they regard opportunity costs simply as makers of fact. If you could earn a bonus by working on a brief, then, as a matter of fact, your night with friends cost $500. But opportunity costs are not makers of fact. While there is no doubt that a price can be put on everything, I believe it is very much up for debate whether a price should be put on everything. Indeed, I believe that there are severe consequences to becoming accustomed to thinking about our lives in terms of opportunity costs-to pricing all of our activities. The "op- portunity cost" of thinking in terms of opportunity costs will be paid in the degradation of many forms of civilized, communal, social life. It will be paid in the degradation of all kinds of value except market value, the degradation of all kinds of goods except market goods, the degradation of all kinds of games except market games. This price for unlimited freedom is too steep a price to pay. People assume that their friends, their lovers, their parents, their sib- lings, their doctors, and their teachers will act with good will, doing, insofar as possible, what is best for them. As a result, they ask no guarantees and write no contracts. People trust that part of what it means to be a spouse, a lover, a parent, a sister, a doctor, or a teacher ensures that the people close to them will behave honorably, truthfully, courageously, and dutifully in social interactions. As social relations become commercialized, however, this assumption grows more and more suspect. Increasingly, people feel the need to have things written down in contracts. Increasingly, they feel the need to be able to hold others legally accountable-whether doctors, lawyers, teachers,
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