Economists understand trade-offs in personal choices and don't miss the value of contentment over endless consumption (trade related)

See What Economists Understand About Tariffs by David Hebert. He is a senior research fellow at AIER. Excerpt:

"In his Modern Age piece, Callahan argues economists miss the value of contentment over endless consumption. Yet, economists understand trade-offs in personal choices, too. Many, including myself, choose lower-paying academic jobs over lucrative private-sector roles because we value the sense of meaning we achieve through our work. Furthermore, many of us will retire at some point; surely, the quest for “more and more” is not served by ceasing to earn income. Though some, like the excellent Walter Williams, joke that “if I should ever die, I want to have taught that day.” But in doing so, people like Williams demonstrate not their consumerist desires, but their great love for their craft of teaching.

Likewise, when Callahan criticizes Mike Munger for describing wealth as “the ability to obtain high quality, low cost products,” he again misses the mark. The implication is not that all people should always and everywhere zealously pursue maximizing their ability to buy more stuff. Munger is making the simple claim that, all else being equal, a person is wealthier when they can purchase more things. If we want people to have more access to the things that allow them to live healthier and wealthier (however they choose to define those terms), then we should eschew policies that make that more difficult. This is especially true of tariffs, which are widely recognized as being regressive in their application, even by members of the New Right such as Michael Lind."