Income in Philosophy and Ethics

Throughout history, many scholars have written about the impact of income growth on morality and society. In particular, a number of scholars have come to the conclusion that material progress and prosperity, as manifested in continuous income growth at both individual and national level, provide the indispensable foundation for sustaining any kind of morality. This argument was explicitly given by Adam Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, and has more recently been developed in depth by Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman in his well-acclaimed recent book The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth.