Michael Blastland
speaker
745 appearances
4 recordings
1 series
first heard Mar 2011
last heard Aug 2011
Michael Blastland’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
How does that work?
Well, not without a few moral headaches, as I found out when I met Charles Whelan from Chicago.
Charlie is the author of Naked Economics, a popular introduction to the subject.
And he tells a great story of perplexing modern economic morality, buying a birthday cake for his dog.
And you raise the question yourself in your book.
How is it morally defensible to buy a birthday cake for your dog when, you know, maybe you could pay for life-saving vaccinations for a dozen people elsewhere?
Some people might say that, well, we should set up a mechanism.
We have governments.
That's what governments are for.
They should direct the money in that kind of fashion to the ends which we think are good, not just instantly gratifying.
I have to say after that that I'm feeling implicated in a lifetime of morally dodgy economic behaviour.
I've never bought a cake for the dog, but I've spent almost as much on one sandwich, and I can't blame economics for that.
Charlie says I'm free to bring to the market, or to the politicians who intervene, just about any values I like.
Most economists don't mind if we're public-spirited, generous, religious or green.
What they want to understand is how our preferences pan out.
So, after making the money, can intervention make it moral, as Charlie suggests?
One example.
The top 1% of earners in the UK pay about a quarter of all the income tax.
A huge part of what we consume is shared, not least through the health service.
This is people giving one to another.
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