We Usher In A More Complete Era Of Human Beings -- Reading The Future From The New Books Of Economics.

Ben Li / Wen

My friend Bao te said, "Kant and Einstein are the greatest existence in the history of human thought." Deep thought. I remember Einstein once said, "I am an artist who can play his imagination freely. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination can hold the world. " Having understood this point, we will understand that the most fundamental purpose of a university is to cultivate a complete person rather than teach knowledge. Just as Kant said, man is the end, not the means.

Adams, the father of economics. Data map

In this regard, Adam Simy, a great thinker in the field of modern economics, is particularly typical. The greatness of Smith is that he not only has the wealth of nations, but also a book on moral sentiments. Therefore, the research of the economics originator is not simply the "invisible hand". At least there is a visible heart. Therefore, in 2019, the Chinese version of a number of masterpieces by Adam Simy was published in recent years, which has only symbolic significance in recent years. The noteworthy works of these works include at least two biographies which are quite effective: Nicholas Philipson's "Adam Smith's journey of thought", Jonathan's "father of economics" Adam Simy's biography: the key life, and the two monograph of the history of thought James J Austersen's Adam Simy: virtue and emotion, and the economic sentiment theory of "Adam Simy, Kong doxai and Enlightenment".

Four the author of the book is British, among whom Emma Rothschild is one of the most famous financial families in Europe -- one of the fourth generation members of the Rothschild family. He is also the disciple of Samuelson, the winner of Nobel economics, and the wife of another Amaetya Sen, Amaetya Sen. In her view, we should not simply regard the "invisible hand" and the free market economy theory as the representatives of Smith's whole economic ideology. Smith's advocacy of free market economy is not absolute. He believes that government regulation is needed in certain form. Besides, Smith's economic thought includes not only the famous free market economy, the complete market competition, but also the incomplete market competition. The latter is the real interest area of Smith, especially in the wealth of nations. Adam Simy's theory of virtue and emotion has also restored a more complete system of Smith's ideology to language, economy and moral market models, which is closely related to the integrity of man in Kant's sense. Therefore, man should not be a means of economy or efficiency, but his purpose.

Compared with the peak in the history of thought, the reality of human integrity is also reflected in the publication of Chinese books.

In recent years, under the background of the twists and turns of the globalization process and the rise of populism, it is the symbol of the global debate that the "capital of the Das Kapital" was born in twenty-first Century. Following the introduction of "inequality", Anthony Atkinson's "inequalities, what we can do", "unfair economics" and Richard Wilkinson's "fair anger", Matthew Drennan's "unequal income", and Kailai's Alasevichanna Soch's "brief history of inequality", such readings also erupted. In 2019, CITIC Publishing House published the "unequal society: from Stone Age to twenty-first Century, how human beings deal with inequality", "the history of global inequality", "why inequality is crucial", "broken steps: how inequalities affect your life" and other related translations, and describes Jane Jowell, an American story about unemployment, choice and hard revival. In this year's book, Don Watkins and Yaron Brooke's "equal injustice: the United States was misled by income inequality", Eric A. Posner and E. Glen E.Glen (Weyl) cooperated with the "radical market: economic model to overcome inequality and economic stagnation", Jean Tijoll's "common interest economics" and Richard Florida's "new urban crisis" are more interesting. The "dark side" series launched by the three books is also excellent. Among them, the "health gap: challenges from the unequal world", "abandoned people after use: new slavery in the global economy" is particularly shocking. So, looking back at Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Diflo and Michael Clay, the third economist from Nobel, who won the 2019 Nobel prize in economics for poverty reduction research, is more logical.

Compared with economic inequality, people's inequality in technology may not be so direct, but the impact is even greater. In fact, Moore's law and learning curve itself are the important reasons for Matthew effect. Under the condition of "exponential growth" and accelerated empowerment, the phenomenon of winner take all is more common. Bill Gate said that the biggest inequality in technology is that the practice of middle income and rich countries has led to climate change, but most of the consequences are borne by poor countries. The 2018 Nobel prize winner William Nord Moorhouse's climate Casino: global warming risk, uncertainty and economics is the forefront of global climate change's impact and cost from an economic perspective. "Future violence and State Governance: in the face of the new threats of robots, viruses, hackers and unmanned aerial vehicles", "zero work economy: the end of traditional careers and the future of work", the impact and the trend of technology on the world are discussed from two levels of national governance and personal work. This also shows from the opposite side that technology drives social development and progress, and it confirms human's luck and necessity from another aspect: that is, man has moral, faith and imagination.

Over the past forty years, the rapid economic growth has not only brought about knowledge and human development, but also made the times have an unprecedented need for "more complete" human problems, giving them new meaning. This is exactly what I expect for the next ten years in 2020.