Assume a can opener
Mocking catchphrase
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Assume a can opener" is a catchphrase used to mock economists and other theorists who base their conclusions on unjustified or oversimplified assumptions.[1][2]
The phrase derives from a desert island joke which dates to at least 1970 and possibly originated with British economists.[3] The first book mentioning it is likely Economics as a Science (1970) by Kenneth E. Boulding:[4]
There is a story that has been going around about a physicist, a chemist, and an economist who were stranded on a desert island with no implements and a can of food. The physicist and the chemist each devised an ingenious mechanism for getting the can open; the economist merely said, "Assume we have a can opener"!
The phrase was popularized in a 1981 book and has become sufficiently well known that many writers on economic topics use it as a catchphrase without further explanation.[5][6]
Examples of usage
The joke and its application to economists were taken up in the 1981 book Paper Money by George Goodman (under the pseudonym "Adam Smith"),[7] wherein he applied the story to the then-tendency of economists to assume that inflation would go away, and mocked the notion that economists are "the high priests of this esoteric mystery."[8] In contrast, he asks "why the economists are always wrong."[9] The phrase "assume a can opener" became "his nagging accusation against the deductive logic and analytical models of economists."[10]
US President Ronald Reagan told the joke to students and faculty at Purdue University on April 9, 1987.[11]
Italian finance minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa used the phrase in 2006 to illustrate that "Very often, when economists comment, they assume politics away."[12] It has been used in Australia to describe "a treasurer who has lost all touch with reality"[13] and politicians "assuming away" the problem of getting a global greenhouse gas deal.[14] It was used in India to describe American economic policy toward China.[15]
See also
- Existence theorem – Theorem which asserts the existence of an object
- Occam's razor – Philosophical problem-solving principle
- Spherical cow – Humorous concept in scientific models
- Thought experiment – Hypothetical situation