132. Are we the victims of a 250 year old oversimplification

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 Economics, or political economy, as the discipline was called then, became a pseudoscience in the late XVIII century, through the contributions of people like Smith and Ricardo. At the time, a critical simplification was made in order to model mathematically the behaviour of the system. Humans will act always to maximise their own self-interest, or utility. This is plainly not true. We are moral animals (at least some of us) capable of acting for the benefit of others over our own, but introducing this degree of freedom would make the modelling of inputs, processes and outputs necessary to be a science impossible. This simplification has become ingrained in the economic theories which actually inform the design of the actual system we live in. As a result, the system is better suited to those who best fit the oversimplification, sociopaths who always and unconditionally prioritise their own interest. We see the consequence in the success of Johnson, Trump, Putin, Koch, etc.

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Location: Hereford, UK

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