Talk: Social welfare function

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Taken from the text:

Often choice of such a function is considered part of political economy. The choice may be a matter of tolerances versus preferences, or some broader political or ethical issue that may be resolveable within economics at all.

A related issue is the need of individual capital for rest and recreation, which prevents anyone from actually maximimizing their total income. This renders moot many of the balanced growth assumptions of macro-economics: Unless a uniform social welfare function is chosen across an entire society, growth is not balanced. Due in part to this concern, more direct means of measuring well-being than "total incomes" or GDP are required by modern human development theory.

Amartya Sen makes the point more directly:

:"What is the relation between our wealth, and our ability to live as we would like?"

Without answering this question, income and welfare are only indirectly related.

These paragraphs seem like a complete non sequitir from the previous material, which is comprehensible. It does not aid me, nor I imagine anybody else, in understanding what a social welfare function is.

That is not the sole concern of the article. This is not a textbook, so the nature of what "is" is is up for debate. While the above text is weak I think, the question of how one selects such a social welfare function, whether "income" is actually a valid indicator of welfare, and the ability of the society to optimize such a function at all (given need for rest, recreation, etc.) must be in there. As it is, the article has a POV problem in assuming that incomes are in fact indicators of general welfare, as the article claims this is the purpose of a social welfare function, and that idea is unchallenged in the text now. While the text provided for balance was weak, it had some merits: notably, it cited Amartya Sen who is the foremost welfare economics guru, it asked the question about the relation between wealth and "living as we would like" very directly, it mentioned the other issues. It should be rewritten and the existing claim that social welfare functions actually do what the intro says they do should be qualified. If you wish to write a textbook, go write one at this address. Else, accomodate the views of a wider range of people, some of whom seem not to believe in this "function" or offer valid challenges to its usefulness. EofT