Is economics moral? (with Heather McGhee)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2019

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’ve established that trickle-down economics and neoliberalism are failed philosophies. But we haven’t yet explored whether economics should be moral - should it reflect our behaviors and preferences, or is it a science that lives separately from our societal norms and values? Heather McGhee joins Nick and Paul to argue that an inclusive economy is not only possible, but imperative to growth. Heather McGhee was the President of Demos from 2014-2018, where she is now a Distinguished Senior Fellow. She’s finishing a major book about the personal, economic, and societal costs of racism to everyone in America—including white people. A recognized thought leader on the national stage, Heather serves as a contributor to NBC News and frequently appears on shows such as Meet the Press. Her opinions, writing, and research have appeared in numerous outlets, including The New York Times, The Nation, and The Hill. Twitter: @hmcghee Further reading: https://www.demos.org/issue/economy-opportunity https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/the-moral-burden-on-economists

Transcript

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0:00.0	An economy that systematically takes advantage of some people will eventually
0:07.3	take advantage of everybody.
0:08.8	I think that we have to tell a different story about race and the economy. One that recognizes that we can't operate in a zero-sum
0:18.4	paradigm of racial competition. Since morality is basically the most important thing to humans and human societies, any economic
0:27.0	theory that doesn't sort of intrinsically address those concerns has to be sort of by definition insufficient.
0:34.3	From the offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle.
0:43.0	This is Pitch Fork Economics with Nick Hanauer.
0:46.8	In honest conversation about how to make capitalism work for everyone.
0:57.0	I'm Nick Hanauer, founder of Civic Ventures. I'm Paul Constant and I'm a writer at Civic Ventures.
1:05.0	So in this show we do a lot of talking about how
1:10.0	neoliberalism and neoclassical economics have failed over the course of the last 40 years or so.
1:18.0	We haven't done a whole lot of talking about why they've failed and that's going to involve a word that you I don't think
1:26.2	have heard yet on this podcast which is moral morality yeah all that all that
1:31.2	nasty stuff yeah so Paul you know one of the ways I think that
1:36.7	most defines and signifies the failure in particular of neoclassical economics is its assertion of sort of in the behavior
1:46.6	model of homoeconomics that economics is both a-social, which means that social relations are all transactional, and that it's amoral
1:56.5	in the sense that moral considerations are outside the bounds of economics.
2:02.0	And so, you know, basically what that means is that morality in economics, they have nothing to do with
2:06.9	one another and economics is a science like physics and has nothing to do with people or are more relations or
2:16.7	moral preferences or are evolved nature as social creatures.
2:21.0	And since morality is basically the most important thing to humans and human societies, how we relate to one another morally, any economic theory that doesn't sort of intrinsically address those concerns has to be sort of by definition
2:36.4	insufficient.
	...

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