The Program in Ethics, Culture, and Economic Development
Over the past century, technical developments have produced vast social and political change, and untold new possibilities. But the relationship of human beings to such change has been deeply paradoxical. There are many frequently voiced complaints: that the benefits of economic development are unequally distributed, but also that more generally there seems to be little correlation between economic advance and human well-being or happiness. Faced with these dilemmas, many scholars are trying to find ways of seeing the issue of economic advance in a more embracing and universal perspective: to examine not simply material well-being, but the links between development and the realization of human potential.
The program looks at the link between institutions and norms and values: in relation to the problems of the sustainability of a just and viable economic order in rich or advanced countries, but also in respect to the promotion of human well-being, the enhanced capacity for human choice, as well as of improved living standards, in poor or emerging market countries. We examine not just debates about institutional reforms and the most appropriate policy framework, but also the link between human freedom and the realization of human capacity.
Scholars of the Witherspoon Institute aim to analyze development as measured in terms of state institutions and markets but also in terms of socio-cultural progress based on moral values that guide individual behavior and promote productive work. An anthropocentric analysis can contribute to how scholars from various academic disciplines, including history, political science and sociology, study development. Only men and women, not markets and institutions, have the freedom to choose. How can they best realize the potential of making moral choices? Men and women working together in the quest for human flourishing with due regard for the moral norms that sustain them—not just the invisible hand of the free market or the guiding force of public institutions—create wealth. Projects in this program seek to explore what types of social and political institutions foster development as well as how men and women shape the market and political institutions.
One important insight is that an excessive reliance on either the market or the state is unsatisfactory and leads to disappointments and backlashes. Markets need not simply a regulatory framework but more importantly a stable framework of norms and expectations. In particular intermediate forms of organization—voluntary societies, associations, but also families—play an essential role in stabilizing society and in embodying and perpetuating norms.
Senior Fellow Harold James is the Director of the Program.
Past Conferences
Globalization and the Rise of the Left in Latin America (December 6-8, 2007)
Faith and Economic Development (March 18-19, 2007)
Updated March 4, 2008