Tag Archives: social value

A little philosophy (value theory) today. Personally, I think it would be madness to stick a monetary value on people’s lives and base our policy choices on whether the dollars on one side of the ledger outweigh those on the other. I wrote a book about that a while ago. The considerations that lead us to think primarily in public health terms at a time like this apply just as well to other issues, from food safety to climate change. The economists who crank out monetary values of life...

Minsky’s journey from socialism to stability for capitalist profitability comes about because he and the post-Keynesians deny and/or ignore Marx’s law of value, just as the ‘market socialists’, Lange and Lerner, did. The post-Keynesians and MMTers deny/ignore that profit comes from surplus value extracted by exploitation in the capitalist production process and it is this that is the driving force for investment and employment. They ignore the origin and role of profit, except as a residual...

I would post a link to Martin Wolf's article but it is behind a paywall at the Financial Times. So this will have to do unless you have access. Somewhat embarrassingly, Brad DeLong gets Mariana Mazzacuto's name wrong. Oh, well, I make mistakes like that, too, on occasion.Wolf review poses a very pregnant question, "… she forces us to ask ourselves what adds value to society and how to create an economic and social order that promotes that."WCEGThe extremely intelligent Martin Wolf...