A Moral Goal For Economics

"Now at last we are setting ourselves seriously to inquire whether it is
necessary that there should be any so called ‘‘lower classes’’ at all: that is
whether there need be large numbers of people doomed from their birth to
hard work in order to provide for others the requisites of a refined and
cultured life; while they themselves are prevented by their poverty and toil
from having any share or part in that life . . . the answer depends in a great
measure upon facts and inferences, which are within the province of
economics; and this is it which gives to economic studies their chief and their
highest interest."

Alfred Marshall Principals 1890, pp. 3-4


My comment: In this political season, I am appalled at the number of elected or aspiring political figures who seem to believe the object of our economy is the continued and increasing wealth of the wealthy rather than the prosperity of all. This is the overriding moral conflict of our time. Marshall's serious inquiry is not yet completed.

We once had the tools to create general prosperity. We have let them freeze up with rust from disuse and a lack of moral willpower.

This moral failing has been aided and abetted by neo classical economists seduced by the mathematics of the Polish mathematician Walras. Walras' theories fall short in part because pure homo economicus does not exist. Humans by nature are cooperative beings who live in groups and are motivated by what seems fair, rather than what maximizes their own economic gain. That is, normal people are so motivated.