Etzioni's contributions to socioeconomics are found in "The Moral Dimension" (1988) and "Happiness is the Wrong Metric" (2018). His main argument is that, in neoclassical economics (the governing form of economics), predictions are poor, the theory about human nature is wrong-headed, and the normative implications are negative. He holds that, rather than assuming that people are seeking to maximize their own utility, one should assume that people are conflicted between (1) their commitments to moral values and the common good and (2) their self-interest. He hence characterized people as “moral wrestlers.” He showed that people act mainly as members of social groups, rather than as free-standing agents. Typically, the main issue is not that the government interferes unduly in the market, but that concentrations of economic power in the private sector unduly affect the government and social life.