The failure of market catallactics in no way denies the following truth: given sufficient knowledge the optimal decisions can always be found by scanning over all the attainable states of the world and selecting the one which according to the postulated ethical welfare function is best. The solution 'exists'; the problem is how to 'find' it.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the challenge of finding the best decisions even when solutions theoretically exist, reflecting on the role of knowledge and ethical considerations.
Paul Samuelson's quote highlights the complexity of decision-making in economics and ethics. While optimal solutions are believed to exist given perfect knowledge, the real challenge lies in how to locate these solutions amidst the myriad possible states of the world. It suggests that although we may understand the nature of an ideal decision, achieving it in practice requires thorough exploration and analysis of available information and ethical frameworks.
In practice
In a discussion about economic strategies, this quote can highlight the importance of informed decision-making.
To a person of analytical ability, perceptive enough to realise that mathematical equipment was a powerful sword in economics, the world of economics was his or her oyster in 1935. The terrain was strewn with beautiful theorems begging to be picked up and arranged in unified order.
I can't think of a president who has been overburdened by a knowledge of economics.
My belief is that nothing that can be expressed by mathematics cannot be expressed by careful use of literary words.
Politicians like to tell people what they want to hear - and what they want to hear is what won't happen.
My family was well off but not rich. I spent the four years I was an undergraduate working on the beach. And it wasn't because I was lazy; it was because my freshman class would go to a hundred different employers and wouldn't get a nibble. That was a disequilibrium system. I realized that the ordinary old-fashioned Euclidean geometry didn't apply.
Economics has never been a science - and it is even less now than a few years ago.
A rational process is a moral process. You may make an error at any step of it, with nothing to protect you but your own severity, or you may try to cheat, to fake the evidence and evade the effort of the quest - but if devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.
There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.
Occasionally God rips aside the veil, and you begin to see this very fact: All things happen for you. All things. Everything is knit together.
…not a fighter… an adventurer. He doesn’t attack, he engages; He doesn’t defend, he expands; He doesn’t destroy, he transforms; He doesn’t reject, he explores; ….
Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels that he is finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him.
I’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions.
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