LAST Wednesday, just as Rachel Reeves commended "her Budget to the house", Scotland's greatest living economist, Sheila Dow, stood up to present at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum. The contrast could not have been more profound.

Professor Dow explained the importance of economic thought grounded in moral philosophy, which she traced back to Adam Smith. She explained that Smith was the first political economist – an understanding of our economy from a moral perspective.

Professor Dow spoke of the importance of learning lessons from the past and realising that you may be considered the "best" economist, but economics is a discipline that means you can never be sure. Your job is to continually test your understanding. John Maynard Keynes wrote something similar, suggesting that good economists should see themselves “as humble, competent people, on a level with dentists”. Not Masters of the Universe as many economists consider themselves today.

“There are no set economic rules”, Professor Dow continued, and if you think you have found one, your job is to find real-world evidence to disprove it. Only then can you be confident.

She also highlighted that many people you disagree with will have a valid understanding of how the economy works. She found those other views essential in helping her grasp a complex and dynamic world.

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Professor Dow was humble. Based on moral philosophy, her view of the economy placed efficiency (where the mainstream spends all of its time) alongside efficacy and justice.

“This is economics in the Scottish tradition,” she said.

In London, our new Chancellor spoke of sure fire ways to create growth (assuming this is most desirable – despite the lack of evidence). Rachel Reeves spoke of hard choices. She raised taxes and increased borrowing, all within a paradigm supported by only one school of economics.

With every announcement, she considered the market's reaction. Would it allow us to help pay for some poorer folks to take the bus? Would it enable us to squeeze more money out of the Budget to keep old folks warm in their homes? How much more money can we take from small businesses that scarcely make any profit?

In sum, the Budget, like every budget for the last few decades, has baked in another cycle of austerity for the UK. It has continued to support the already wealthy, placing profit far above people, place, and planet.

There is no moral underpinning of our economy. Every budget increases inequality and poverty. It entrenches wealth and power in the UK. Every decision is poured over by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) or as I call it, The Office for Austerity.

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Our moral compass now tracks our debt and deficit, not our levels of resource depletion, inequality, poverty, the life chances of our young people, our climate targets, or our wellbeing. Our government has no moral compass. And if you analyse the institutional design of the UK, we can expect nothing else because the UK Government serves at the pleasure of the King who heads the most odious institution in the UK –the monarchy.

The Channel 4 show Dispatches outlined where much of William and Charles’s "private" wealth comes from. Between them, they earn £50 million a year as landlords, much of that money coming from the public sector, private tenants and, just for good measure, some charities that have the King as patron. Of course, this is on top of the sovereign grant, which will be £132 million a year next year.

We are shocked by these revelations because we have, as Professor Dow would say, not learned from the past. Hereditary wealth comes from extraction, which is generational. When your parents made their wealth from owning, not working the land, and they were revered and held in the highest esteem, why would you do anything different? When you understand the institution of the monarchy, you can see why nothing is beyond the pale.

(Image: Andrew Milligan/PA)

Next year, the royal family will earn close to £200 million. They earn this because they are related to someone. They are the most expensive hypocrites and gaslighters in the UK. Some of their time is spent discussing mental health, the environment, the excellent work of our third sector and most recently, homelessness, a pet project for the future King. All the while, they sit on billions of pounds worth of assets, much of it hidden from view, and they exercise a subversive role in our democracy via the "Queen’s consent", which enables the monarchy to influence law passed at Holyrood. Like a fish, the UK rots from the head.

Whether you agree with me or not, the response to these revelations draws us back to the same economic framework that constrains the UK government. “They need to pay corporation tax to fund the services we require,” was the message of the Dispatches show. How feeble. The mainstream economic framework is designed to tweak or mess around at the edges. At its heart, we will always find the need to appease the wealthy. We believe we need the wealthy so we can tax their income, and borrow them money.

However, the UK doesn’t need tax revenue or undertake borrowing to fund government expenditures. Both are only a way to account for that spending. There are other simple ways to account for spending. But by framing "hard choices" within a tax and spend framework, we end up in the same "pay for" world – a world where we look to tax the monarch rather than abolish this outdated institution filled as it is with sickening greed and extravagance.

Economics must be underpinned by a moral philosophy prioritising efficacy and justice. This must be the case, too, for all of our institutions. If we undertake this review, our institutional structure and the institutions we need will change. Like the UK, the monarchy is anachronistic, and the sooner we rid ourselves of both, the stronger our moral foundation will be.