Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism

Selfishness, Greed and Capitalismnarrative, free-market economists are not only obsessedwith material possessions, but, in their thirst for wealthand consumption, ignore human well-being and are blindto the negative aspects of growth, such as environmentalpollution. By putting a price tag on everything (includingwhole nations, hence GDP) it is supposed that they forgetthat some things cannot be bought and sold.This is a straw man and the underlying premise is inane.Far from being free thinking iconoclasts, critics of materialismare echoing clichés that go back centuries. ‘Whatis the point of walls and warships and glittering statues ifthe men who build them are not happy?’ asked Socrates inthe fifth century BC. ‘Nought’s had, all’s spent/Where ourdesire is got without content’, spoke Lady Macbeth. ‘I don’tcare too much for money/Money can’t buy me love’, sangThe Beatles. Philosophers, prophets, politicians and popstars have been making the same point since the dawn oftime. Being clichés doesn’t make them untrue (clichés areusually true), but when the same sentiments are expressedby everyone from Socrates to Sarkozy via Jesus Christ, PaulMcCartney and Tony Blair, one must conclude that ‘there’smore to life than money’ is not a dazzling new profunditybut is itself the conventional wisdom.Economics does not seek to challenge these sentiments.It is not a rival to religion or philosophy. It does not tellpeople how they should behave, nor does it dictate whatpriorities society should have. Economics is, as the dictionarydefines it, ‘the science of the production and distributionof wealth’. GDP has never been anything more than ameasurement of national wealth, but measuring a nation’s46