The Betrayal of Liberal Economics

The presumed sovereignty of individuals and the facilitating powers of the markets have generated a universal and ethically neutral conception of both social and economic organisation. This ground-breaking text re-examines the purpose of society and the role of economics in it, arguing that the absence of a beneficial natural order calls for the role of the collective in social and economic life to be revisited. Drawing on some key figures marking milestones in the evolution of social and economic thinking, the author offers a critique of mainstream economics as a way of thinking and as a provider of guiding principles for economic and social organisation. Whilst Volume I looks at how economics' paradigmatic core betrayed us by its false promise, Volume II begins to consider whether the current status quo may in fact be a result of the way in which the academic community have instead betrayed economics. Starting with an exploration into the nature of human sociality and what the notion of the 'individual' means in both liberal classical and modern economics, the author moves on to address the organisational implications of these conclusions using the concept of 'social distance'. He then considers whether modern economics can accommodate such sociality whilst maintaining the same organisational principle of competitive decentralisation as the universal recipe for economic organisation. The text concludes by examining whether the fault can be found in the misconception of modern economics as a linear intellectual progression from liberal classical economics. This is done through a novel re-examination of liberal classical economics by developing Adam Smith's theory to answer such questions. This is a bold and foundational new work that offers an original and innovative perspective on economics and its challenges, addressing core areas such as behavioural economics, evolutionary game theory and links between social sciences (anthropology, philosophy) and neurosciences.

Auteur
Amos Witztum is a professor of economics who is currently a Research Associate at the Centre for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, UK.

Contenu

1. An Illusion of Order1.1Early Conceptions: A Conditioned Order1.2Post Enlightenment Developments: Internalised conditionality1.3The modern era: Idealised realism.
2. The Power of Beliefs: The organisation principles of economics' paradigmatic core2.1 The Paradigmatic Core2.2 The nature of Theoretical Obstacles and Developments2.3 The Hard Problems2.4 Growth: the new Holy-Grail2.5. ConclusionAppendices A-B
3. A Sense of Irrelevance3.1 Share of Governments3.2. The Share of Wages in National Income.3.3 Employment3.4 A Note on Growth3.5 ConclusionAppendix A
4. On Freedom and Justice: A Note pertaining to economics' liberal connection4.1 Freedom, Liberty and Sovereignty: A note4.2 Markets, Justice and the idea of Due Share4.3 Conclusion
5. On Human Sociality I5.1. Being Social5.2 Prehistoric and Evolutionary Dimensions
6. On Human Sociality II: Intrinsic Sociality, self-interest and Social Organisation6.1. Social Distance and Social Organisation6.2. Cognition, Development and the conception of society6.3 ConclusionAppendix A
7. The Conception of the Individual in Modern Economic Analysis7.1. The 'Choice' of Rationality. 7.2. Rationality and Sociality7.3. Rationality in Economics7.4. Socialising the Instrumentally Rational Individual.7.5. The problem with Homo Economicus7.6. Conclusions
8. The Classical Alternative8.1 The Modern versus Smithian Narratives8.2 The Moral benchmark I: The Individual8.3 The moral benchmark II: the analysis of systems and distributions.8.4. Spill over and the Beneficence of Natural Distributions.8.5 Summary of moral argument8.6. Conclusions
9. Epilogue: Quo Vadis9.1. Reflections on the more immediate implications of the book 9.2. Some Broader implications9.3. Taking Stock: A Summary of the book 9.4. Some Final Words