A book that reflects the author - a rather unspectacular, though professionally accomplished, globalist Keynesian and a complete opposite to Trump and alot of the rest of the world.
The Guardian likes him, which speaks volumes of course. Trump, OTOH, will be enraged by his approach I'm sure
The embrace of markets and their “subjective” valuations has led to a society that has been robbed of its capacity, declares Carney, to express what is important to us. His seven key values are: solidarity, fairness, responsibility, resilience, sustainability, dynamism and humility – all laced with compassion. That leads to three key components of any good society: fairness between the generations, in the distribution of income and of life chances. He opens Value(s) citing Pope Francis at a Bank of England lunch deploring how current trends are turning the wine of humanity into a toxic grappa of self-interest – and ends by hoping that his book can turn grappa back into wine.
He has succeeded: Value(s) is something of a landmark achievement. Carney is at his most sure-footed and convincing on the rise of a market society and the accompanying decline of values. We are at the risk of being overwhelmed by “a utopia of wealth and a dystopia of personal relations”, as one economist he quotes puts it. The book provides an original condemnation of today’s economics as surrendering the quest for objective value grounded in the essence of our humanity. As markets best reflect our subjective preferences, there is nothing to be done except surrender to their will. And the same process is being extended deep into our social marrow – even to health and the value placed on lives. Of course, as he readily concedes, markets unleash energy and dynamism, but to believe that they are always right and cannot be altered is to sign up to a quasi-religious faith. He scorns persistent market fables – “this time will be different” (the most expensive words in English, as he says), “markets always clear” and “markets are moral”. The 10 pages in which he takes down these myths are worth the book alone.
Value(s) by Mark Carney review – call for a new kind of economics
This weighty assault on the modern free market by the former governor of the Bank of England is a landmark achievementwww.theguardian.com
Most people decrying Carney and claiming to have “read” his book just watched Jordan Peterson use words they didn’t understand but nodded in agreement at his assessment.
