Grappa-Ling With Mark Carney (2)
Although he tries to add some anecdotes, the first four chapters of Carney's book read like an economic text, covering as they do the histories of value theory and of money. There are no great revelations here, though it feels like the chapters are a subtle push-back against people who still believe in m ercantilism or the gold standard. The chapters also feel like they are addressing the absolutism that characterizes a lot of political thought rooted in (some of the) principles of economics. I want to highlight a few of these that are relevant to me. First is the distinction between what we might call 'productive' and 'unproductive' economic activity. Carney makes the point, with which I agree, that this can be pretty arbitrary. To begin, we have two sets of factors that do not contribute to the 'value' of an object: rent, and rent-seeking activities profit, and profit-seeking abilities There are also activities that are deemed 'non-productive' b...
