IS GROUP CHOICE A PART OF ECONOMICS? COMMENT.

The article focuses on a comment on the paper "Is Group Choice a Part of Economics?" by Bushrod W. Allin published in the August 1953 issue of "Quarterly Journal of Economics." To the question propounded in Allin's title -- "Is Group Choice a Part of Economics?" -- the only possible answer is, "Yes, and no; it depends." If "economics" means everything a practicing economist or teacher of the subject ought to know, then it is "yes, by all means -- up to a point." But in that case vastly more still would have to be included, and Allin gives no indication as to where he would set a limit to his insistence on more breadth and inclusiveness than he finds prevalent. What Allin evidently means, in the main, by "group choice" is governmental action. Here, two very different questions are presented by the effects of such action and by its mechanism and its non economic implications. A useful treatment of economics may no doubt properly include "a good deal" of the first, while very much of the second would trench unduly on the sphere of the other specialism, politics or government.