Bart Wilson

Do Cows Use Tools? This One Does.

Of course, if a cow were to use a tool, it would be a Brown Swiss.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/s...

We never see “anti-self” or “self-sacrificial” models in economics because they’d break the discipline’s moral boundary, namely that every act, however generous, must still fit inside the logic of self-interested utility.

Economists love the term “prosocial.” It sounds generous, but notice we never say “self-sacrificing.” The word smuggles in an optimism that helping others can be good for them without ever really being bad for you.

Book Review: Meaningful Economics: Making the Science of Prosperity More Human, Bart J. Wilson When economists analyze human conduct exclusively in terms of scarcity, they ignore the complexity of the human mind. In the twentieth century, economists

"Wilson wants economists to reject narrow cause-and-effect arguments because they obscure human purpose and meaning behind action."

www.independent.org/tir/2025-fal...

Here's the link:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

I’ve written a short essay on the philosophy of economic science, titled “Constrained Optimization or Observation? On What Economists Take as Primary.” This is just a beginning, and I’m keen to hear counterpoints as I continue down this path.

Great Strunk!

t.co/10xGjBAxh8

What Monkeys Teach Us About Economics with Bart Wilson - The Great Antidote What if modern economics has overlooked what truly makes us human?In this episode, Bart Wilson joins us to explore humanomics—an approach to economics that reintroduces meaning, culture, and moral jud...

Monkeys, markets, and human nature — I join The Great Antidote with Juliette Sellgren to talk about how deep the roots of economics really are.

loom.ly/I6Gdk3Q

I would add that the calling of the university isn’t just about witnessing truth, but also discovering what’s good and beautiful about the human condition. These three distinct values compose a trinity that is necessary to be faithful and courageous to the calling.
crookedtimber.org/2025/03/22/o...

Pretty much sums up Homo sapiens

Late-stage capitalism: when the stock exchange becomes theatre

it tends to set the reader himself in the track of invention, and to direct him into those paths in which the author has made his own discoveries, if he should be so happy as to have made any that are valuable.”
~Edmund Burke

“I am convinced that the method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation is incomparably the best; since not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew;

In "Meaningful Economics", I argue that economics is as much about purposes and human values as it is about cost-benefit analysis, reframing economic science as a question of "why?" and not merely "how?" or "how much?".

Find out more: oxford.ly/41IGv52

Making economics more human As the “official doctrine of neoclassical economics, enshrined in all respectable textbooks,” the esteemed game theorist Ken Binmore says, revealed preference theory “succeeds in accommodating the inf...

Are we just rats in a cage, chasing immediate rewards? What if economics recognized us—not just as reactive creatures, but as imaginative, purposeful beings?

oxford.ly/4h5T8M2

On explaining why the (human) world is rich The wealth of the modern world is a natural historical marvel. Explaining it has traditionally been the purview of economic historians, as exemplified…

Why did Homo sapiens become rich? Economists generally leave it to historians, and to a relatively small handful of them at that, to ponder such an important question. Maybe they need us non-historians to mix things up for them.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

OUP is offering 30% discount for "Meaningful Economics" if you buy it directly from them using the code AUFLY30.

global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Or, on why economists might should want to reflect on why we think the way we do

Meaningful economics Human beings mean. We just do. Human beings contemplate the importance or significance of everything, be it a person or a place, an action or a consequence, a possession or an idea, a relationship or ...

If there is something that almost all economists agree on, it’s that economics is about cost-benefit analysis, not moral human conduct. But why? Why must we separate economics and ethics such that never the twain shall meet?

blog.oup.com/2024/12/mean...

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The Kindle version of my book is released today!

www.amazon.com/Meaningful-E...

Meaningful Economics: Making the Science of Prosperity More Human Meaningful Economics: Making the Science of Prosperity More Human

My book is available for pre-order!

www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0197...

I agree that it isn’t constructive to conclude that there are no benefits to math in economic analysis. But I rarely hear us economists admit or even acknowledge that there are indeed costs, not just benefits, of pursuing mathematical precision.

What if words, in fact, are not on a continuum with maths? They may share some underlying structures, but they operate differently on meaning and representation.

This is Mine | Season 3, Ep. 6 - Institute for Justice On this episode, we take a break from case law and go way back to the beginning to examine the origins and justifications of private […]

On this episode of #BoundByOath we ask what is property? No, really, what actually 𝑖𝑠 it? Where does it come from? Is it “theft”? And what do John Locke, Henry George, condos & spears have to do w/ it? We explore this w/
@bartwilson.bsky.social & @mattzwolinski.bsky.social!

ij.org/podcasts/bou...