The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties

by Paul Collier

Armed with its Utilitarian calculus, economics rapidly infiltrated public policy. Plato had envisaged his Guardians as philosophers, but in practice they were usually economists. Their presumption that people were psychopaths justified empowering themselves as a morally superior vanguard; and the presumption that the purpose of the state was to maximize utility justified redistributing consumption to whoever had the greatest ‘needs’. Inadvertently, and usually imperceptibly, social-democratic policies changed from being about building the reciprocal obligations of all citizens. In combination, the result was toxic. All moral obligations floated up to the state, responsibility being exercised by the morally reliable vanguard. Citizens ceased to be moral actors with responsibilities, and were instead reduced to their role as consumers. The social planner and his Utilitarian vanguard of angels knew best: communitarianism was replaced by social paternalism.