Skeptical Economist

I have just read the Skeptical Economist by Jonathan Aldred. This book promised to be good, but the delivery was disappointing.

The subtitle of the book is "Revealing the Ethics Inside Economics. Aldred’s aim is to expose the hidden ethical assumptions that are smuggled into modern economics. This is a noble goal. The claim that economics can be a value free science is a sham.

The problem is that the liberal humanistic values held by Aldred prove to be a fairly dry well from which to draw a replacement. Aldred is right in saying that sound economic thinking must have a solid moral base, but that basis can only be provided by a sound moral system. Christians are best placed to find the clear moral thinking that economics urgently needs.

See Normative Economics.