Mark Carney on how the economy must yield to human values

The market economy story has spread like wildfire, with uneven results for human well-being and devastation for the natural world. But it is just a story we have told ourselves and we are free to tell another, to reclaim the old one.

What was once an impersonal mechanism that compelled people to look at everything around them as a potential source of profit has come to be considered the only objective measure of the health of the human community itself.

Socialism need not position itself as the polar opposite of capitalism. Socialism can temper the excesses, challenge the bull-headed free-market mantra. The market is not God. And, while markets may correct their own excesses in the long run, as Maynard Keynes remarked, ‘in the long run we are all dead.’

We’ve allowed the “market” to define what we value so that the redefined common good seems to depend on profligate lifestyles that enrich the sellers while impoverishing the soul and the earth.

A few examples include: Greed is good. Maximizing pleasure from consumption is the goal. A billion acts of selfishness will lead to a prosperous society. The social duty of business is just to maximize its profits. There’s no such thing as society, only individuals—that was Margaret Thatcher’s famous quote. Markets are efficient; other institutions