A Critique of Developments in Social Economics and the Alternative

Abstract

The article makes a comprehensive study of the development of social economic thought in the history of economic doctrines. Traces of social economic development are dated back to the Physiocrats and moral philosophers and reference is made to the early Arab works in the developments of these social economic doctrines. The social economic thought in the classical school of economic theory is critically studied. It is shown that with the advancement of economic theory in the hands of the neoclassical school and its latter‐day developments social economic doctrines receded from mainstream economics. The contemporary social economists in North America have fallen into the trap of these neoclassical approaches applied to the study of social economic phenomena. The article also shows that similar neoclassical and ethically neutral traces continue in the works of the mixed economy theorists, institutionalists, macroeconomists, monetarists, rational expectations hypothesists, public and social choice theorists of all types. Thus, the whole gamut of mainstream economics is shown to be trapped in an epistemological and methodological quandary as to how ethical phenomena are to be treated rationally in the framework of economic theory.

Citation

Alam Choudhury, M. (1991), "A Critique of Developments in Social Economics and the Alternative", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 18 No. 11/12, pp. 36-61. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000000475