The Journal of Economic Literature, a publication of the American Economics Association, maintains a guide to 'Classification Codes' by which economists identify their field of research. This blog will center on code A130 - the Relation of Economics to Social Values.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
What is wrong today? It is about more than the economy.
The current crisis is not only economic and financial but is rooted in an ethical and anthropological crisis. Concern with the idols of power, profit, and money, rather than with the value of the human person has become a basic norm for functioning and a crucial criterion for organization. We have forgotten and are still forgetting that over and above business, logic and the parameters of the market is the human being; and that something is men and women in as much as they are human beings by virtue of their profound dignity: to offer them the possibility of living a dignified life and of actively participating in the common good. Benedict XVI reminded us that precisely because it is human, all human activity, including economic activity, must be ethically structured and governed (cf. Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate, n. 36). We must return to the centrality of the human being, to a more ethical vision of activities and of human relationships without the fear of losing something.
Pope Francis, taken from address to the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation on 25 May 2013.
Full text at: Address of Pope Francis to the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation
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Very true. Economics cannot be independent of ethics because it is a field of ethics.
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