In his reflections on the economics of the public sector, Amos Witztum questions the common approach in modern economics of measuring the costs of redistribution on the basis of the associated efficiency losses: "One should not ask about the efficiency price of equity. Instead, one should be more concerned about the equity price of efficiency." He casts fundamental doubt on the widely accepted view, originally propagated by Lionel Robbins, that the efficiency of resource use is the central economic problem. Referring to Aristotle, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill, he points out that the satisfaction of material needs is not a final end, but a prerequisite for a "good life," and that the unlimited satisfaction of wants should not displace the "true purposes of life" such as the pursuit of justice and friendship. It also rejects the idea that the same criteria should be applied in the economics of the public sector as in the assessment of the results of competitive markets.