There seems to be a radical difference in how welfare economics is taught in US schools.
My grad dept included Henry Aaron, Martin McGuire, Mancur Olson, Wallace Oates, among others. It's main strength was public finance, which we understood as applied welfare economics. In our instruction, the economy was understood as potentially rife with externalities, and efficiency was understood as socially derived. In addition, it was understood that broader criteria for social welfare could appropriately modify 'socially efficient' outcomes achieved by government intervention in markets. There was little talk of "government failure."
>From a social standpoint, in this sense, indeed
more is always better than less. More means
the benefits (or lack of harm) to all parties
affected by production or consumption.
By contrast, I seem to run into people whose understanding of efficiency theory allows for no social dimension, only private ones unique to buyer and seller. Thus they properly take offense at efficiency criteria since in their view, such criteria exclude much of importance. So we're talking about different concepts, at bottom.
Then there is a third species, people who find neoclassical theory to basically valid and useful, but attribute all the problems to the sociology of the economics profession, not to the methodology.
I take the point that if we pretend to measure things that can't be measured, we introduce misinformation to a decision. But in such cases, we are still obliged to make a judgement. The alternative to a judgement that is informed of the inadequacies of measurement technique seems to be closing ones eyes and throwing darts. This reality seems to be glossed over by references to humane considerations or democratic participation. But these just evade the economic problem, far as I can see, even if economists do not ultimately decide the outcomes in the political world.
MBS