A few years ago, a homeowner in Las Vegas—a place that gets maybe
five inches of rainfall a year—was confronted by a water district
inspector for running an illegal sprinkler in the middle of the
day. The man became very angry. He said, “You people and all your
stupid rules—you’re trying to turn this place into a desert!”¯
Ideas about how the world works that don’t accord with reality
can be unhelpful. That’s especially true about mainstream
economics, which is based in part on ideas that made a lot of
sense at some point in the last 250 years but that have outlived
their time and usefulness. These ideas—such as the reliance on GDP
as the key index of general wellbeing—still dominate assumptions
and thinking about economic matters in the media, governments,
businesses, and popular consciousness. (to continue, click
here)
