Economists are Basically Storytellers

The traditional storyteller begins, “Once upon a time. . . .” The persuasive economist begins, “Let’s assume that. . . .” Economists tell stories about demand curves that slope downward to the right, about the process of capitalizing expected values, about the exploitation of comparative advantage, about exchanges based on attention to marginal values, about persons pursuing the projects that interest them in accordance with the accepted rules of the game and paying attention to the net advantages of alternative means as reflected largely in the price tags attached to those means and generated by the totality of social transactions. They tell all these stories with the intention of persuading others that an orderly and cooperative pattern lies beneath the seeming chaos and conflict of observed social transactions, and that discernment of this pattern enables one to predict the general consequences of contemplated policies.