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Over the past fifty years, the way we value what is 'good' and 'right' has changed dramatically. Behaviour that to our grandparents' generation might have seemed stupid, harmful or simply wicked now seems rational, natural, woven into the very logic of things. And, asserts Jonathan Aldred in this revelatory book, it's economics that's to blame. Licence to be Bad tells the story of how a group of economics theorists changed our world, and how a handful of key ideas seeped into our decision-making and, indeed, almost all aspects of our lives. Aldred reveals the extraordinary hold of economics on our morals and values. Economics has corrupted us. But if this hidden transformation is so recent, it can be reversed. Licence to be Bad shows us where to begin

In a recent paper, Dryzek and List attempt a reconciliation of Social Choice Theory and Deliberative Democracy. Such an attempt is certainly long overdue and their original article is an important first step. In some ways it succeeds. In particular, they show that much of the imagined tension between the two theoretical frameworks is illusory and due to the mistaken assumption that many of the claims of rational choice theory form part of social choice theory (SCT) too. But in the nature of a Comment, I shall concentrate on aspects of their discussion which in my view warrant more critical scrutiny.