Economics Has Increasingly Become The Science Of

The Other Effect That I Worry About Is The Effect On The Parent, That The Moral Teaching Of Humility And Of The Limits To Our Control That Parenthood Teaches- - That That Will Be Lost And That We Will Begin To Think Of Children More As Consumer Goods Than As Gifts That We Can't Fully Control And For Which We Aren't Fully Responsible.

If Parents Are Aiming At Choosing Children Who Will Be Good Athletes, Or Great Musicians, Or Who Will Get Into Ivy League Schools, Or Who Will Be Tall Enough To Make The Basketball Team, Then There Is A Danger That The Life Of The Child Will Bear The Burden Of That Expectation; And The Risk Of Disappointment And The Cost Of Disappointment Will Be Even Higher Than They Are Now, And Even Now They Can Be Considerable.

I Find This In All These Places I've Been Travelling - From India To China, To Japan And Europe And To Brazil - There Is A Frustration With The Terms Of Public Discourse, With A Kind Of Absence Of Discussion Of Questions Of Justice And Ethics And Of Values.

I Think Very Often When We Think We Are Aiming At The Best For Our Children, What We Are Really Doing Is Trying To Position Them For Competitive Success In An Intensely Driven Kind Of Society. I'm Not Sure That Always Leads To The Good Life Or To Happiness.

My Goal Is First Of All To Promote A Public Debate About Where Markets Serve The Public Good And Where They Don't Belong. That's My First Goal.