“Economics is itself a function of aspiration. It’s what people aspire to that creates the field in which economics works.”

—  Joseph Campbell

Lecture 1B, 8:20
Mythology and the Individual (1997)
Context: All cultures … have grown out of myths. They are founded on myths. What these myths have given has been inspiration for aspiration. The economic interpretation of history is for the birds. Economics is itself a function of aspiration. It’s what people aspire to that creates the field in which economics works.

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Joseph Campbell 140
American mythologist, writer and lecturer 1904–1987

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