“To help the poor, study economics”: income inequality, justice, and economic theory
Part 2
In Part 1, I described the unstinting growth of income inequality, its injustice and contribution to climate threats. Is there a economic theory that can offer real, practical advice to leaders and other people to make a definitive difference, both financially in terms of lifting people out of poverty and in terms of climate change?
There are arguments that economics is purely mechanistic, and moral considerations do not enter, indeed, should not enter into the conduct of business. Milton Friedman posited that the only purpose of any business is to maximize its profits, for example. Moral considerations are mere “ethical customs.” [1]
Much more recently, the popular French philosopher André Comte-Sponville presented a philosophical argument to buttress this perspective, in his bestseller entitled Is Capitalism Moral?[2] He considers that a capitalist economy belongs in the scientific and technical fields of human endeavor. Therefore, it cannot be moral or immoral, but amoral — exempt from the moral spheres of human activity.
An argument to the contrary was championed by Frederick Hayek, whose contention that a free market is a moral necessity, and government interference in its functioning is immoral. Reviving the…
