Ethics and Economics Education
Moral foundations, economic principles, & critical thinking
What caused the Great Depression? There’s no shortage of popular theories. Some say it was an inevitable consequence of capitalism. Others claim it was the big stock market crash of October 1929 that started it. Yet another hypothesis says that the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff, highest in U.S. history, turned a recession into a depression. All these explanations are false. Economists […]
Read moreWhat duties do businesses have toward others, apart from refraining from violating their rights or otherwise treating them poorly? Do they have a responsibility to help solve social problems? Milton Friedman answered this question in a famous 1970 essay, “The Social Responsibility of Business,” with a resounding “No!” Was he right? Friedman says that managers of businesses owe their jobs […]
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