Economics Of Good And Evil

Product Description

Tomas Sedlacek has shaken the study of economics as few ever have. Named one of the Young Guns" & one of the "five hot minds in economics" by the Yale Economic Review he serves on the National Economic Council in Prague where his provocative writing has achieved bestseller status. How has he done it? By arguing a simple almost heretical proposition: economics is ultimately about good & evil. In The Economics of Good & Evil Sedlacek radically rethinks his field challenging our assumptions about the world. Economics is touted as a science a value-free mathematical inquiry he writes but its actually a cultural phenomenon a product of our civilization. It began within philosophy--Adam Smith himself not only wrote The Wealth of Nations but also The Theory of Moral Sentiments--and economics as Sedlacek shows is woven out of history myth religion & ethics. " Even the most sophisticated mathematical model " Sedlacek writes "is de facto a story a parable our effort to (rationally) grasp the world around us." Economics not only describes the world but establishes normative standards identifying ideal conditions. Science he claims is a system of beliefs to which we are committed. To grasp the beliefs underlying economics he breaks out of the fields confines with a tour de force exploration of economic thinking broadly defined over the millennia. He ranges from the epic of Gilgamesh & the Old Testament to the emergence of Christianity from Descartes & Adam Smith to the consumerism in Fight Club. Throughout he asks searching meta-economic questions: What is the meaning & the point of economics? Can we do ethically all that we can do technically? Does it pay to be good? Placing the wisdom of philosophers & poets over strict mathematical models of human behavior Sedlaceks groundbreaking work promises to change the way we calculate economic value."