"But while I loved all of these courses, there was an irresistible attraction of economics"
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There is a quiet seduction in that phrase, and Stiglitz knows it. “Irresistible attraction” borrows the language of romance to describe what is, on paper, a brutally technical discipline. The move is strategic: it frames economics not as a spreadsheet religion but as a field that pulls you in because it promises leverage over the real world. If you’re intellectually curious, lots of subjects are enjoyable. Economics, Stiglitz implies, is the one that won’t let you go.
The line also performs a kind of self-positioning. Stiglitz isn’t dismissing the other courses; he’s establishing breadth first, then narrowing to obsession. That’s a familiar origin story for public intellectuals: the open-minded student who samples widely and then chooses the tool that best explains power, scarcity, incentives, and policy. The subtext is almost a justification for later authority: I didn’t arrive here by tunnel vision; I arrived because this discipline exerts a gravitational pull.
Context matters because Stiglitz’s career is built on challenging the profession’s smug certainties - information asymmetries, market failures, the limits of laissez-faire. So the “attraction” isn’t only to markets; it’s to the argument that markets don’t magically behave. Economics is irresistible because it offers both a language of precision and a stage for moral stakes. In one sentence, he turns a personal preference into a claim about the field’s unique power: it’s where curiosity meets consequence.
The line also performs a kind of self-positioning. Stiglitz isn’t dismissing the other courses; he’s establishing breadth first, then narrowing to obsession. That’s a familiar origin story for public intellectuals: the open-minded student who samples widely and then chooses the tool that best explains power, scarcity, incentives, and policy. The subtext is almost a justification for later authority: I didn’t arrive here by tunnel vision; I arrived because this discipline exerts a gravitational pull.
Context matters because Stiglitz’s career is built on challenging the profession’s smug certainties - information asymmetries, market failures, the limits of laissez-faire. So the “attraction” isn’t only to markets; it’s to the argument that markets don’t magically behave. Economics is irresistible because it offers both a language of precision and a stage for moral stakes. In one sentence, he turns a personal preference into a claim about the field’s unique power: it’s where curiosity meets consequence.
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| Topic | Study Motivation |
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