Homo Economicus is a fundamentally selfish man. But what if he’s been vastly overhyped?
Samuel Bowles’ slim, fascinating, and thought-provoking book, The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizens starts with two assertions. The first is that policymakers have over-learned Adam Smith’s lesson that people achieve collective good when they pursue private interest. Smith noted that pursuit of self interest often produces societal benefit. But Smith hedged his bets. Bowles charges that economists, jurists, and policymakers often don’t hedge theirs, and they have come to rely excessively on incentives based on the proposition that people’s behavior is entirely self-interested and amoral.
In the first of a 10-part series, Justin Marozzi tells the story of this once-mighty city in Iraq – a microcosm of human history. Besieged by wars and weather, ‘restored’ by Saddam Hussein, what has become of mystical Babylon?
The recognition of an exception to a general rule.
A moral reading of the law.
The doctrines and remedies developed in the English courts of equity, especially the Court of Chancery.
Equity is a slippery word, and hard to grasp. What makes it so slippery is its long history, and the many uses to which the word has been put. In legal usage, there are at least three different meanings for this word.
How a scheme to help Russians secretly funnel money offshore unravelled.
Because the Russian company and the offshore company both belonged to the same owner, these ordinary-seeming trades had an alchemical purpose: to turn rubles that were stuck in Russia into dollars stashed outside Russia. On the Moscow markets, this sleight of hand had a nickname: konvert, which means “envelope” and echoes the English verb “convert.” In the English-language media, the scheme has become known as “mirror trading.”
.. Deutsche Bank has admitted that, until April, 2015, when three members of its Russian equities desk were suspended for their role in the mirror trades, about ten billion dollars was spirited out of Russia through the scheme. The lingering question is whose money was moved, and why.