Incentives are important for allocative efficiency, whether that be the price of a banana or the incentive to do a job that pays more. Of course, they're imper

Incentives are important for allocative efficiency, whether that be the price of a banana or the incentive to do a job that pays more. Of course, they're imperfect and there are some cases where incentives lead to rent-seeking rather than genuinely economic efficiency. And there is often a divergence between private value and social value. But these are exceptions to the rule. If everyone ignored price signals, society would be less well off. This doesn't mean we should all attempt to do the highest possible paying job available to us, but it does mean there's a genuine loss to society if (say) a high paid software engineer decides to quit and start a bike repair shop i.e. the economic pie will be smaller an so will the tax base. So when making the decision we should at least be conscious of this. As an economist, I do kind of agree with the premise of the article, but in a different way. As consumers in particular, we can do much better than following incentives. For instance, we can use the car less, even if it's a bit inconvenient. It's much nicer to see more people out walking, on their bikes or on the bus, leads to less noise and congestion. So there's a positive externality. Or I could buy a smaller car, even though bigger one is more convenient. Similarly, if you're lucky enough to have a high paying job, you can buy all sorts of status symbols. Or, you could choose to consume less than you earn, and give the difference to charity, or invest in something of social value. Whether you agree with this or not, economic theory provides a clear framework to think about all of this, both the price signal and the difference between private and social incentives. What bothers me (as the article touches on) is that people often have a simplified view of economics which is essentially that 'market incentives and price signals broadly lead to good outcomes (or at least, better outcomes than communism!), and therefore economics always morally endorses buying things at market prices'. There's nothing in economic theory that says that spending £50k more on a car because it's got a fancier brand is a reasonable moral choice.