It has been a source of prudishness over the past two decades, and the butt of innumerable jokes: but why did political correctness arise in the first place? Stephen Morris, an economist at Yale University, thinks he knows the answer. His analysis* suggests that, from the point of view of its practitioners, political correctness is an entirely rational form of behaviour-although from a broader perspective, it is potentially wasteful. Either way, its days as a social phenomenon may be numbered.
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