I’ve just started a book by David C Rose called [amazon_link id=”0199781745″ target=”_blank” ]The Moral Foundations of Economic Behavior.[/amazon_link] It already promises to be very interesting. Take this paradox from the Introduction:

“General prosperity requires co-operation in large groups, but we are indisputably a small-group species. We are therefore maladapted for achieving a condition of general prosperity.”

The argument is that ever-larger groups are necessary for increasing specialization, which is the source of growth and modern prosperity – as Douglass North and Vernon Smith put it, a condition for development is moving from personal exchange in small societies to impersonal exchange. But achieving the necessary trust within large groups depends on a moral framework which does not come naturally….

More will follow when I finish the book.

[amazon_image id=”0199781745″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Moral Foundation of Economic Behavior[/amazon_image]