Markets Against Modernity: Ecological Irrationality, Public and Private.

• Author: Anthony, Nicholas

Markets Against Modernity: Ecological Irrationality, Public and Private

Ryan H. Murphy

Lanham, Mcl.: Lexington Books, 2020, 212 pp.

There is a war happening, but it is not one between nations. It's a war between millions of years of human evolution and a few hundred years of rapid economic growth. In Markets Against Modernity, Ryan Murphy, Senior Research Fellow at the O'Neil Center for Global Markets and Freedom at Southern Methodist University, describes this war as "Ecological Irrationality." It is a clash between modern institutions (e.g., the rule of law, science, capitalism, globalism, and pluralistic democracy) and the influence of prehistoric habits on our minds. It is a clash that has spawned systemic errors across economic, social, and political relationships. It is a clash that can finally be analyzed and understood, now that Murphy has that it into the light.

He begins Chapter 1 with the relatively innocuous title "Trade is Good" and a discussion of the rise of DIY ("Do It Yourself') culture. Whether one seeks to make a simple pencil, a chicken sandwich, or an electric toaster, there is an important distinction--as famously noted by Jurassic Park's fictional chaos theorist Ian Malcom--between what one could do and what one should do. It is true, writes Murphy, that offshoring, outsourcing, and layoffs are less than aesthetically pleasing, but they "are a crucial part of the story of how we went from using monks as scribes ... to giving away free pens and pads of paper to whoever shows up." DIY "evangelists" may believe their cause benefits society, but the truth is quite the opposite.

Murphy goes on to discuss why trade is such a controversial topic for the general public. He cites an inability to interact with all 8 billion of our neighbors. In fact, he warns that we can barely keep track of more than a 100 of them--a limitation that traces back to humanity's tribal origins. Murphy warns that "[w]e are militantly skeptical of the idea that economic growth is a thing for us: we assume that what others call 'economic growth' will always be at the expense of us and those whom we identify with."

Moving beyond trade, Chapter 2 delivers a crash course in public choice as Murphy seeks to explain why "[t]here's no shortage of bad policies, even in countries with the world's most effective governance." After an introduction to the Virginia, Bloomington, Rochester, and Chicago schools of Political Economy, Murphy turns to George Mason...