By certain standards, as a whole we in the Western world are materially better off than we have ever been. Indeed, these gains have extended across the world as well, and are even accelerating.
Our advancements have not only affected us in material terms, with innovative advances and more products, but also in how we conceptualize and relate to the world as well.
As this recap of a recent symposium from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute puts it:
“Modern economics was a moral revolution, and a revolution in reasoning as well. Human ends, for purposes of economics, were not universal and natural but also subjective. They are today understood in terms of consumer preferences. The role of reason in economics is not to supply the standards by which we should live our lives but to show us the means by which we can achieve our individual (and aggregate) aims efficiently.”
This, however understandable, does also bring downside: nowadays we too narrowly interpret and evaluate our lives and our communities on the basis of economics. Making economics the foundation of our purpose and happiness, even at the expense of virtue, can’t help but breed broader discontentment in ourselves and our society. We are supposed to do more than just consume and accumulate stuff.
Reflecting on this, ISI recently brought together a host of thinkers to discuss the need to rediscover a humane economy. Delving into what this might look like and how it could be accomplished, this review of that symposium includes write-ups of the following:
- Oren Cass – “Are you better off than you were forty years ago?”
- Anne Rathbone Bradley – “The good news about the economy and our families”
- Richard M. Reinsch II – “What rebuilt Germany can fix America”
- Rachel Bovard – “Market unfreedom: causes and cures”
