Synopsis
A moral attack on classical political economy, arguing that wealth severed from justice and human worth is a false and corrosive measure.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Public domainThere is no wealth but life, and an economy that ignores the dignity and welfare of workers measures the wrong thing entirely.
It reasserts ethics over economics, insisting that the true value of any system is the human flourishing it produces.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom.
Reading note
Read these four essays as ethical polemic against the economists of his day, not as technical economics.
Best paired with
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom