I’m in Indianapolis visiting family, and one of the things I like to do whenever I’m here is make a trip to Half Price Books.

Yesterday I picked up a copy of For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future by World Bank economist Herman Daly and process theologian John Cobb.

My views on economics have been in flux for the past few years. I was at one time attracted to the libertarian exaltation of the free market, but I’ve become increasingly convinced of the limitations of that view.

The conservative side of me is skeptical that a system based on acquisitiveness can really be conducive to virtue, especially as the logic of the market threatens to take over more and more areas of life. The liberal side of me is unconvinced that the rising tide will really lift all boats, at least at a rate fast enough to forestall ecological disaster. As I’ve become more interested in environmental issues I’ve been exposed to the arguments of those who maintain that unlimited growth is a dead end, literally.

Daly and Cobb seem to be following in the footsteps of thinkers like E.F. Schumacher. They embrace the market and recognize that central planning is unworkable, but they also want to situate the market within a social and moral framework that respects the integrity of communities, both national and more local ones.

In this respect their project seems to hark back to the decentralized “humane economy” of conservative Swiss economist Wilhelm Roepke, a thinker I admire a lot. Their goal is to rethink economic policy in a way that treats human beings as more than an abstract homo economicus, as well as being sensitive to what, following Wendell Berry, they call the “Great Economy” of all life on Earth.

I’ve only read the introduction, but I’m eager to see where Daly and Cobb go with their project and will probably post more on these ideas as I go.