In this 5.5-minute video, Manfred Max-Neef explains that economics taught in most schools today is at odds with reality as experienced by the world’s poor. Modern economics, taught in isolation from other schools of economic thought, calls itself a ‘value-free science’. But how, he asks, can an academic discipline that measures human behaviour not take into account human values or motivations? Professor Max-Neef argues that reform is needed. He suggests that students should spend part of their studies living in an impoverished community. Only then will they understand economic activity as it effects the poor.