Something Someone Said

I found this quote from Lord Kelvin in some old economics book "Whenever you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it. But when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind."

This illusion of objectivity, this myth of positivism, this faith in statistics was never meant to invade economics, but it has. The whole thing reminds of R.E.M's "Sad Professor":

R.E.M. - Sad Professor Lyrics

If we're talking about love
Then I have to tell you
Dear readers, I'm not sure where I'm headed.
I've gotten lost before.
I've woke up stone drunk
Face down in the floor.

Late afternoon, the house is hot.
I started, I jumped up.
Everyone hates a bore.
Everybody hates a drunk.

This may be a lit invention
Professors muddled in their intent
To try to rope in followers
To float their malcontent.
As for this reader,
I'm already spent.

Late afternoon, the house is hot.
I started, I jumped up.
Everyone hates a sad professor.
I hate where I wound up.

Dear readers, my apologies.
I'm drifting in and out of sleep.
Long silence presents the tragedies
Of love. Not the age. Get afraid.
The surface hazy with attendant thoughts.
A lazy eye metaphor on the rock.

Late afternoon, the house is hot.
I started, I jumped up.
Everyone hates a bore.
Everybody hates a drunk.
Everyone hates a sad professor.
I hate where I wound up.
I hate where I wound up.


By Kelvin's and the author of the book's logic, the most important things in life like love, liberty and happiness are unsatisfactory because they cannot be measured. This philosophy is doomed from the start.

Economists must recognize that there is a great amount of knowledge that is unmeasurable but very important and worthy of study.