Ethics & Economics | How & How NOT to Do Economics with Robert Skidelsky

In 1983 University of Chicago economist George Stigler proclaimed “The economist doesn’t need ethics; only arithmetic. His task is to clear up social mistakes.” In this eleventh and final lecture in INET’s “How and How Not to Do Economics,” Robert Skidelsky takes a different view of ethics’ place in economics.
Learn more at www.ineteconomics.org/perspec...
INET sincerely thanks the Julis-Rabinowitz Family for their generous support, who named this series to honor the spirit of a great educator and economic thinker, Uwe Reinhardt.
For nearly 50 years, the late Uwe Reinhardt was a beloved economist and professor at Princeton University. Known best for helping to shape critical discourse around healthcare markets, his biting wit and intellect challenged students, colleagues, and policymakers alike to follow the data and to check all assumptions at the door.
INET also thanks Rethinking Economics for their voices and contributions.

[@mattfinish8631]

Economics is a classic example of the process-oriented thinking taught at school. This where you are encouraged to think only within the scope of the task to complete. You are graded on your success only and punished otherwise. You are not allowed to ask why am I being given this task? What is its purpose? But only by asking such questions do you actually learn.

[@KailamiMwiinga]

At the end of the day, hopefully what you achieved was how to think not this is what they taught us

[@C3yl0]

Love it! As a philosophy economics and Cognitive neuroscience major this is an amazing lecture.

[@DrSanity7777777]

"An irrational passion for dispassionate rationality will take all the joy out of life." - J.M. Clark

[@ajtblues]

Excellent lecture! More like this!

[@2late4coffee]

What a lesson! I enjoyed so much thanks for everything.

[@khairx9093]

Woo I'm totally speechless to this mural of lecture，what in-depth interpretation it is! Just made me have more understanding of what is around me and what is ahead of me.

[@maxheadrom3088]

To be clear, Joseph Stiglitz was being ironic when he said what is mentioned around the start of the video. Stiglitz won his Nobel prize for his work on symmetry of information and competition - he showed that without symmetry of information (all economic agents share the same information), competition is asymmetric and favors the agent with more information.

[@TheCommonS3Nse]

The absence of ethics in economics can I think best be illustrated by the neo-classical tendency to dismiss the fallout of their policies as mere noise. For example, your economy may lose 10,000 jobs, but it will gain 15,000, therefore the issues caused by the job losses are just noise. But in the real world, those 10,000 lost jobs were high paying union jobs, and the 15,000 that replaced them are minimum wage service sector jobs. That isn’t “noise”, that is people’s livelihoods. There are serious repercussions to those movements in the job market which can’t simply be waved away.

[@summertime69]

The trouble with "logic of decision making under scarcity" is 2 things. First that some industries have artificial scarcity; there could be enough, but those who control the means of production keep a limit on supply to keep prices artificially high. Second that people don't make all decisions from a purely economic perspective. People take actions against their own interests all the time.

[@DaveE99]

Someone in a netflix documentary called “rotten” about food production industry and this on on big sugar. Said “Free markets, ha, Bullshit, there is no such thing as free markets, just a handful of companies that control things and rig them for their own benefit.”

[@AkkaBowdenKerby]

@@fatpotatoe6039 sometimes ita possible to corner the market. Debeers is one company that has.

[@C3yl0]

Isn’t that the asymmetric information dilemmas?

[@justanothereconomist198]

@@C3yl0 Yes it is.

[@justanothereconomist198]

"Second that people dont make all decisions from a purely economic perspective. People take actions against their own interest all the time." I dont think any economist makes the claim that people make all decisions purely from an economic perspective, but that also depends on what you define to be 'economic'. Secondly, the second statement always seems to rub me that wrong way because it requires a certain definition of 'self-interest' to be present, but it also requires you to observe alot of latent motives, values, beliefs, norms, and evironmental cues in order for you to fully justify whether they were or were not acting in their self interest. Self interest can easily be satisified if we understand enough about what goes into why someone chose what they did. The point I am trying to make is that just because a bunch of people said someone did not act in their self interest requires complete and identical information of the choice environment between the economic actor and the critic (you). See Twin's Fallacy for something loosely related.

[@jenniraisovna5698]

Dear Robert Skidelsky, please watch the conference on the Allatra TV channel that was streamed a couple of months back. People from all over the world are assembling to bring creativity and ethics into lots of fields. Please bring your POV there, I believe societies will benefit from it. Thank you for sharing this lecture.

[@canalsocialismocristao4605]

he is constantly quoting the comunist manifesto but failed to acknowledge that marx discussed the prices of scarce itens like jewels in Capital, i think he like so many have not read it

[@jamesbuchanan3888]

Economic growth is not for anything. Economic growth is a by-product of free individual choices. In my opinion, the ethics in economics moved from the ends (just price) into the structure and process which creates the ends.

[@magnumopus8202]

Yes

[@DaveE99]

A good video to watch is about “the history of debt: first 5000 years” by david graeber.

[@BabaYaraMUFC]

Wish my writing was that good!!!

[@DaveE99]

So are we stuck because we can’t decide on what is morally good? Or how might we go about figuring that out and actually deciding on that. It’s like we need a revival of morality in life.

[@alejandrobolanos4655]

Why have a smaller classroom, a more intimate setting, and still deliver a lecture as you would in a bigger one? Such potential for discussion and contrast gone to waste

[@aaj1415]

There is a discussion at the end of the lecture in another video, you can find it in the same Playlist.

[@DaveE99]

He talks a bit about - when is growth justified or to what ends is it justified. And it’s like such that we are are living a better life or something like that. But remember the average life expectancy in the us went down actually, especially amounts white people I think. We know the younger generation, (I’m 33 so general z, hell even millennials to a large extent). Mental health is absolutely insane and not doing good. Suercide are up, and a whole host of other not so good things are happening. At what point do we look and go “wtf are we even doing to our selves” And it screws with me morally not just looking at myself that “capitalism” and the supply side of economics dictates that the “destruction of the individual” is in any sense moral.

[@aaronzaslow8379]

Although I think your correct that the study of Economics has pushed traditional morality out of the picture, it has not eliminated it but simply replaced it with something far more twisted: objectivism. Generally speaking, I've tried to explain to many that progressive policy isn't simply morally good, it's also objectively more efficient than the alternative. However, most simply don't care. The argument such ideas are less efficient is simply a smoke screen: the real motivation behind conservative Economic thought is that such progressive policies are immoral. To them It's immoral to redefine property rights, help the poor and unfortunate, or for a robust public sector to exist. That is the morality they believe in, and I'm unashamed to say it's disgusting: and it's shameful that it's been adopted by many influencal Economists and effects their decisions.

[@edzaslow]

Nonsense.

[@DaveE99]

Ed, your basically as intellectual as those trump people’s whose only answer is “Trump 2020 MAGA WHOOO!” Not sure what your even basing your comment on, he had a really well thought out analysis on the world which I have found to be pretty much correct.

[@DaveE99]

I think we need to start asking “more efficient for who and to what end?”

[@justanothereconomist198]

*Behavioral Economics laughs from afar ...*

[@etiennet_esq]

Is there a way to print the transcript?

[@abcrane]

Regardless of any moral sentiments or laws, a truly healthy economy (and ecosystem!) is contingent on these three mass worker/consumer states of health: 1. instinctual health (grounded in a primordial biological self-regulation, NOT in learned behavior of irrational social codes) 2. psychological health (free from addiction and personality disorders) 3. physiological health (strong and vital enough to work effectively) Without this healthfulness, any and all moral laws/sentiments are moot points, for people, like animals, will behave according to their inner natures. A group exhibiting these states of healthfulness will engage in meaningful, sustainable work, demand holistic goods, and avoid conspicuousness in their social interactions and contracts. Abundance will flourish as they eliminate the wastefulness of toxic consumerism, excessive bureaucracy, and social mayhem. Equilibrium will stabilize as mirrored by their mental, emotional, and social states of well being.

[@thornslove]

Economics as philosophy of value?

[@thornslove]

Impact of GE Moore of JM Keynes?

[@bauron1985]

Brilliant stuff I would add betterment of life can now be measured in a direct co relation to the destruction of the planet. The only bookends that growth needs.

[@AkkaBowdenKerby]

It will all come to a head when large ecosystems collapse. Ie when climate change results in truly massive shifts. I'm thinking of things like the weakening of the gulf stream. And the acidification of the oceans.

[@62426637]

"Stewardshiip" theory resembles indigenous thinking

[@abcrane]

Today, a low price may often be an "unjust" price, since the labor was exploited to such a degree that the corporation can afford to maximize its scale and ROI with enticingly low prices. Adding insult to injury is when the product itself was toxic and unnecessary. We end up with un-breathable skies in a toiling coal-driven China and an epidemic of pathological hoarding and dept in the USA. Nietzsche called this decadence.

[@canalsocialismocristao4605]

what central planing has to do with communism? did he read about central planning in Capital, sure not

[@marianhunt8899]

Surely it is good to have clean water, healthy food and a humble roof over ones head for a start? At the very least our most basic needs should be met. What is so difficult about that? The economists need to relearn Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. A lot of economic theory is used to foster exploitation unfortunately.

[@dickhamilton3517]

the young lady on his right thinks Robert is the Bees' Knees.

[@TiaTurnbullnow]

Since we are guessing about her facial communication: It's a mask. She was taught to be a good girl and to be pleasing so each time he glances in her direction she nods her head to show him she is listening. Everybody loves someone who has been trained like she has to be in their audience. She learned well. She gets rewarded for her positive attentive behavior also.

[@kimwaldron2606]

Do I need to state the obvious? The history of so-called science of economics has been the history of the development of philosophies that justified whatever capitalists wanted to do or were already doing, irregardless of the effect on society. It was propaganda that paved the way for Capitalism that was sponsored by intellectuals who were mostly well off and served the interests of rich people. They claimed that Capitalism "worked" in general for Society, bypassing the question of whom it "worked" best for.

[@aliciahaensgen6401]

But is involving morals in economics realistic?

[@C3yl0]

Yes it is. Review the dilemma of asymmetric information in organ donation and market place, the licensing of healthcare providers.

[@dickhamilton3517]

"the Just Price"... ahahahahahah. It's a poor joke.

[@brettmcclain9289]

I can no longer tell the difference between the marxists and kenysians. Thank god for the Austrian school, I think you guys lost it full stop.

[@jackbeagle8458]

This is a non-critique

[@shizuo69420]

like these lectures but the students staring awkwardly are kinda cringe