The distortion of value: The economy and ethical reductionism

Sa？etak While the economy plays a necessary role in the function and maintenance of social value, and the delivery of vital goods, contemporary society suffers systematic distortion inasmuch as monetary value has become the default, or normative, standard for all aspects of human existence. This reduction of value seriously affects the possibilities of all human development, inasmuch as those projects that promote growth and development are evaluated primarily in terms of economic potential. Further, the dysfunctional understandings of economies continue to support political and social ideologies that encourage economic benefits at the expense of human lives. The lack of a historical perspective that this reductive perspective creates negatively affects the abilities of people to recognize necessary and constitutional values that would enable all persons to make deliberate and meaningful choices with their lives, choices that are required if society is interested in promoting cultural and transcendent values, precisely those choices which make meaning the focus of human endeavour