Policy in an Era of Unreason: Remarks Upon Receiving the Veblen-Commons Award
We live in an age of unreason. Sadly, this could be the norm for modern humanity. The world’s experience with fascism in the early twentieth century certainly shows that eras of unreason are not unprecedented. And since 1980, in the United States, we have been undoing — from a public policy perspective — what progress was made toward a decent society in earlier decades, and removing reason as a criterion for both proposing and adopting public policy proposals. This is very discouraging to those of us who believe that the purpose of economic analysis is to provide guidance in solving social problems. I believe that there are three causes for the current triumph of unreason: (i) nostalgia for a mythical golden age, (ii) ideology, and (iii) social valuation. I will briefly speak of each in turn.