Economists Nancy Folbre and Jennifer Roback Morse stand far apart on the political spectrum, but their recent books (Folbre’s The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values and Morse’s Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn’t Work) offer complementary insights into economics, the family and love. On a superficial reading, they line up on opposite sides of the “culture wars” that divide American intellectuals, but a closer reading reveals that their differences are more apparent than real.

A.M.C. Waterman is a retired fellow at St. John’s College, Winnipeg and professor emeritus of economics at the University of Manitoba, Canada.
Culture and SocietyEconomic History and DevelopmentEconomistsEconomyFamilyFree Market EconomicsPhilosophy and Religion
Other Independent Review articles by A.M.C. Waterman
Winter 2020/21 Economics Meets War and Peace: Tolstoy’s Implicit Social Theory
Winter 2019/20 The Evolution of “Orthodoxy” in Economics: From Adam Smith to Paul Samuelson
Winter 2016/17 Pope Francis on the Environmental Crisis