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Over the past 50 years, the way we value what is good and right has changed dramatically. And, argues Jonathan Aldred, it is economics that is to blame.
In his new book Licence to be Bad – How Economics Corrupted Us, Jonathan Aldred tells the story of how a group of economic theorists changed our world, and how a handful of key ideas, from free-riding to Nudge, seeped into our decision-making, and, indeed, almost every aspect of our lives.
Behaviour that to our grandparents’ generation might have seemed stupid or harmful now seems rational, natural, woven into the very logic of things. Economics, Aldred argues, now wields an outsize influence on our lives and values, and has corrupted common-sense morality to a concerning degree. It’s time to put it back in its proper place.
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Jonathan's critical comments are all well and good, but why does he still consider the broad economic objective is to achieve growth? When asked, in a macro sense, how our economic model needs to change to avoid looming environmental catastrophes, the correct answer is "We need to end our mathematically impossible insistence on perpetual growth. Really soon.".
This subject itself has been corrupted! please see "The Corruption of Economics", a book by F. Harrison and Dr. M.Gaffney. This explanation shows the more basic cause of our being corrupted, in turn.
But we don't have to be, and some hopeful thinking can enable us to improve on our understanding about this matter. See my: SSRN 2865571 "Einstein's Criterion Applied to Logical Macroeconomics Modelling" which in turn directed the concerned reader to my book which explains how to REALLY understand about our social system.