Kenneth Boulding, President Kennedy’s environmental adviser said something about this: “Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad – or an economist.”

Wages are the opportunity cost of leisure. The higher the wage rate, the more hours of leisure a worker will forego and the more hours of labour he will supply.

We don’t make choices based on our internal preferences. Instead, we have a gut feeling about what it is we want, and go through a process of justification and rationalisation in order to manipulate our[…]