There's a very good reason for why economics developed the way it did, and that is that in many situations, the assumption that people will exploit the opportunities available to them is very plausible, and it simplifies the analysis of how markets will behave.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the rational behavior of individuals in economics, emphasizing that assuming people will take advantage of opportunities simplifies market analysis.
Daniel Kahneman explains that the development of economic theory is rooted in the assumption that individuals act in self-interest by exploiting available opportunities. This assumption, while not universally true, offers a practical framework for understanding market behavior, making it easier to analyze economic scenarios and predict outcomes.
In practice
In a lecture on economic theories, one might quote Kahneman to discuss rational behavior in markets.
We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision.
The average investor's return is significantly lower than market indices due primarily to market timing.
Banks are run by executives, and executives protect themselves, and that does not always mean that banks are going to behave rationally.
Laziness is built deep into our nature.
Through some combination of culture and biology, our minds are intuitively receptive to religion.
You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.
Winds flap the sail, tortoise and snake are silent, a great plan looms. A bridge will fly over this moat dug by heaven and be a road from north to south. We will make a stone wall against the upper river to the west and hold back steamy clouds and rain of Wu peaks. Over tall chasms will be a calm lake, and if the goddess of these mountains is not dead she will marvel at the changed world.
It's never a question of skin pigmentation. It's never a question of just culture or sexual orientation or civilization. It's what kind of human being you're going to choose to be from your mama's womb to the tomb and what kind of legacy will you leave.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
It is Hell, of course, that makes priests powerful, not Heaven, for after thousands of years of so-called civilization fear remains the one common denominator of mankind
If someone puts up the argument that King Louis gave the Romagna to Pope Alexander, and the kingdom of Naples to Spain, in order to avoid a war, I would answer as I did before: that you should never let things get out of hand in order to avoid war. You don't avoid such a war, you merely postpone it, to your own disadvantage.
Feeling that morality has nothing to do with the way you use the resources of the world is an idea that can't persist much longer. If it does, then we won't.
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