The essential story then, as it appears to me, is that in the process of the economic development of the past 200 years the Arabs have gone through a thorough process of metamorphosis which one may call Westernization. This is not something one can easily describe as good or bad, but it is, to say the least, highly dramatic. Only an economist can respond to this drama by counting the costs and benefits. This response is particularly lamentable since the economist has in his box of tools one particular hypothesis which should have protected him from falling in his error. This is the old hypothesis in welfare economics that it is illegitimate to make interpersonal comparisons of utility, that is, it is not right to compare one person's welfare with that of another … I personally dislike the change, which is usually called Westernization, but this is a matter of temperament and I am not going to try to force my opinion on anyone. I will only attract your attention to the fact that this Westernization is itself changing, so much so that it may really have become something very different from what it was when the Arab–Western encounter started 200 years ago.