How economics has contributed to 'a mirror image of a Robin Hood society', according to someone who won its highest prize
www.abc.net.au
A Nobel Prize-winning economist has criticised the foundations of mainstream economics, writes Gareth Hutchens.

Mainstream economics is in “disarray.”

It ignores the reality of power, it neglects questions of equity, and its policy recommendations can be “little more than a license for plunder.”

That’s the opinion of Angus Deaton, the British-American economist who won the economics version of the Nobel Prize in 2015.

The 78-year-old professor says he’s recently been changing his mind about views he’s long held and it’s a “discomfiting process.”

But will his colleagues listen to him?

  • Septimaeus
    7·
    4 months ago

    I don’t often hear middling views on the topic of capitalism on social media. People appear to favor either near complete deregulation or conversion to planned economies. It’s nice to hear someone both acknowledge the efficiency of free markets AND stress the importance of properly harnessing them for the sake of the public and long term sustainability.