The chairman of Britain’s Financial Services Authority argues that in the decades before the collapse of Western financial markets in 2007, too many economists were practicing a wrong-headed kind of economics. Their obsession with designing intricate mathematical models pushed moral, ethical and practical considerations too far into the background. It is high time for that to change. In a short article in “The Globalist” Lord Turner discusses some of these issues. Due to its significance to our understanding of what has gone wrong, I have reprinted it below for your keen interest. Before you begin to read Lord Turner’s wise words, I want to share something coming from my heart with you. It saddens me that when about 15 years ago, I began to say very similar things to what Lord Turner is saying now, my so-called fellow academic colleagues accused me of having gone mad. They told me, if...
