But preferences make sense only over whole states of affairs, in which income is only part of what matters. The peasants are like anyone else; they want income only for what it will buy for them. If in a bad year with the higher-yielding grain they starve, their income will have done little for them. As is presumably true of Scott and virtually everyone else as well, I also do not have an unrestricted preference for higher income. If higher income entails giving up my academic life or more of my leisure time, I may not prefer it to my present income with my present lifestyle and consumption pattern. There are no preferences that “make sense in terms of income alone.” Income is just a proxy for what we really want.

XREF: Connects to behavioral economics on revealed preferences and utility theory beyond simple income maximization.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 150