Download: Economics4Life3.pdf

In Economics for Life Professor Ian Harper, the former head of the Australian Fair Pay commission, shares insights gained from his professional career as an economist during an exciting period of world history.

He demonstrates why economics is a good servant but a bad master. While he suggests that, “It is surely good that millions of human beings have been delivered from grinding poverty by economic systems variously based on market principles, he also observes, that,” The creation and acquisition of wealth has become, for many people, the sole purpose of their existence and the sole criterion of value in their lives.” 

Professor Harper shares not only what he has learned as one of Australia’s best known economists, but also something of the values which undergird his worldview.

Reflecting on what he describes as ‘the dark side of the market’ he argues that markets have the potential to undermine community life: “By exalting individual preferences and achievement, markets can corrode a sense of responsibility for or belonging to one’s community, fuelling social alienation.”

Dr Frank Milne, Bank of Montreal Professor of Economics and Finance at Queen’s University, Ontario, writes that in Economics For Life, “Ian Harper shows that economics provides a very useful framework to understand and explore earthly affairs, whereas Christianity addresses deep spiritual and moral issues. This book should be read by all those fashionable critics of religion and economics so that they may expand their intellectual horizons.”

The book launch will be held at 5.30pm Tuesday 5 April at:

Deloitte
Room Leadership
Level 11, 550 Bourke Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000.