Your comment paints a picture of an economist who would happily liquidate his family for enough cash. This indicates a weak grasp of the field. Economists are quite happy to discuss things that are "economically beneficial" (or, to use the jargon, "utility") not merely as a specific amount of cold hard cash (modulo the risk of prosecution) but in terms of all the things that people value, like family and love and human decency and maybe even having your soul rot in Hell for murder if you happen to believe in such things.
Indeed, understanding that money is just a means to Utility is very important to understanding economics in general, especially when you start getting into macro topics like Inflation where the value of money fluctuates. And any economic analysis which hides important costs or benefits (like Values) off the balance sheet is bound to produce nonsense results.
Perhaps if you'd taken an introductory course in the topic, you would have been disabused of these notions. Cute straw-man, though.
I wish I wouldn't have written my second sentence the way I did because I don't actually believe any economists would do that, though in my defense I didn't think anybody would take it seriously. I was using an extreme example to demonstrate that nobody actually gives primacy to economic arguments, so their perfectly valid conclusions aren't going to be effective when someone for example cares more about their own countrymen than foreigners. I 100% agree that some immigration would improve America economically and reduce global inequality, but I feel that I have an moral obligation to not throw poorer Americans under the bus to accomplish it. Also taking everything into account, maybe that financial benefit wasn't worth it for other reasons. Massive illegal Mexican immigration seems to have completely fucked over many Black Americans, for instance. Economics is a useful tool to find these things out, exactly as you say. I believe that most low-skill immigration to the US is a process of enriching the richest by replacing the poorest with even poorer and transitioning the other poor to government assistance.
Indeed, understanding that money is just a means to Utility is very important to understanding economics in general, especially when you start getting into macro topics like Inflation where the value of money fluctuates. And any economic analysis which hides important costs or benefits (like Values) off the balance sheet is bound to produce nonsense results.
Perhaps if you'd taken an introductory course in the topic, you would have been disabused of these notions. Cute straw-man, though.