Some problems with Richard Murphy’s circles

Richard Murphy seeks to replace economics with a more human-oriented approach. In order to do so he creates circles to express the purpose of human activity. These are supposed to emphasise that there is more to human life than that expressed in economic and material transactions (p113). I’m not sure who actually thinks the opposite is the case, and I imagine they would probably be sectioned if they did. I’m all for challenges to economistic thinking, and alternatives are therefore to be welcomed. However, I have some worried about Murphy’s circles.

First, I will explain the approach. The circles are split into the various valuable things about a human life. It therefore includes the fulfilment of material needs, but also of emotional needs, intellectual fulfilment, and purpose. The outer limit of the circle represents the limits of potential achievement on each of these values, given that we only limited time, energy and resources with which to achieve. When someone focusses on any one area of achievement, they will lower their potential to achieve in the others. This ability to choose is attractive to liberals: people can choose which aspect(s) of life on which to focus.

Unfortunately, Murphy’s own values come in when explaining the over-emphasis on material goods over the others. I agree with this on a personal level, but I worry that his approach only works if these values are taken to be correct tout court.

The outer edge of the circle is initially explained as the limit of what someone can achieve in that domain or dimension of life. However, as time goes on, Murphy insists that people can overconsume. This occurs where people spend more on goods than they should and waste goods that should belong to others (p144). It is not clear where “should” comes in here, but it seems to be an instance of Murphy inserting his own values (attractive as they are) into other people’s lives.

The problem I would like to point out is that the material dimension works differently from the others, which renders his circle somewhat inconsistent as the basis of a new approach. The fact that it is possible to go outside the edge of the material dimension shows that the edge of the circle is not in fact a limit but a value judgment of what level would be sufficient material wealth. This is all very well and good, but the other parts of the circle do not work in the same way. It would presumably be possible for someone to emphasise the ‘purpose’ dimension of life at the expense of the others, and we might want to say that person has done more on this dimension than they should have done. On the other dimensions, there is a sufficient level somewhere inside the outer limit circle. However, on the material dimension the outer limit of the circle is a ‘should’ not a limit. This must be the case if it is possible to go outside the limit.

Murphy has come up with a neat way to express the point that many people overemphasise material “conspicuous consumption” (which comes from Thorstein Veblen’s excellent Theory of the Leisure Class) over other aspects of their lives. The view also illustrates that those with little material means have to sacrifice other areas of their lives as they struggle to take care of their material needs. It also allows him to illustrate that much financial activity doesn’t seem to relate to the goods of human life (though financiers would presumably claim that it does so in an indirect way). However, it is not a consistent basis on which to analyse anything, as it requires the imputation of values into the model, something which is contentious and subjective