I very much appreciate Hashimori Iwato's response on assuming and not assuming
uniformity of utility functions among individuals who might appear to be in the
same class. A comment below:

>What seems to make our modelling so attractive to the political scientist is
the agent approach (cat aspect) with which we describe human behavior. It might
be that in the political arena, popular opinion is so uniform (monkey aspect)
among different social classes or political groups that your assumptions of
representative agents can withstand empirical rigour. I beg of you, however, not
to assume in general that we are measuring with similar degrees of precision.
We, economists, as far as I can tell are empirically much closer to reality than
you political scientists.

>We start with the assumption that everyone is different, and you start with the
assumption that everyone is the same. We are playing in different leagues.

>Hashimori Iwato

Political scientists should, but apparently do not always know, that assuming
everyone in some sort of group (politicians, or MITI bureaucrats, or members of
a political party) is the same is methodologically quite dangerous. I wouldn't
want anyone to think that we routinely do this with aplomb. And perhaps we would
do well to notice more carefully when our methods DO require us to make this
assumption.

Meg McKean.

Margaret A. McKean
Department of Political Science
Duke University
Box 90204
Durham, North Carolina 27708-0204
direct telephone with voice mail: 919-660-4340 departmental FAX: 919-660-4330