The Inability of Economic Life Support

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When we think about economic life, we should think first in terms of dignity, agency, those kinds of human goods. And then second, how dos the economic life support enhance those things? Um? But, ya, it distorts our thinking just massively. We once i started seeing the world this way, you just start to see it, ah, really everywhere. It's like the drunk looking for the keys under the lamp post.

Author, economist, and theologian Mary Hirschfeld of Villanova University talks about her book, Aquinas and the Market, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Hirschfeld looks at the nature of our economic activity as buyers and sellers and whether our pursuit of economic growth and material well-being comes at a cost. She encourages a skeptical stance about the ability of more stuff to produce true happiness and/or satisfaction. The conversation includes a critique of economic theory and the aspect of human satisfaction outside the domain of economists.