ethics and economics

Haven't actually read this but picked it up from another blog. Liked it since it chimed with some of my views on ethics and economics (quotes from Macintyre)

"What the economy needs is that people become responsible to its needs rather than their own, and so it presents as over-ridingly desirable those goals of consumption and ambition, the pursuit of which will serve the economy's purposes. The desires to achieve these goals, when they become central to our lives, prevent us from becoming self-critical about our desires, and so prevent the asking of Aristotelian questions about character and desire."

Thirdly, modern capitalist economies lead to "conditions of gross inequality: inequality of money, inequality of power, inequality of regard, and it is an undeniable fact that even the most successful examples of growth in the present globalised economy generate further inequalities. Aristotle pointed out long ago that a rational polity cannot tolerate too great inequalities, because where there are such, citizens cannot deliberate together rationally. They are too divided by sectional interests so that they lose sight of the common good."

The character of desire. There are objections to this on the grounds that it could lead to paternalism, i.e goes against the liberal ethos. But why should desire-satisfaction be equated with the good (individual or social) and why should it be any old desires, why can't the individual himself or herself reflect-as we often do- on the value of different things we want? Is there, then, no role for education or refinement? What such an approach conveniently ignores is how are preferences are often influenced or manufactured. At the root of it, can we say that we have or know what is some kind of first-order, primal desire, unfiltered, unmediated by others's expectations, desires, strategies?