Search results

A widely accepted belief holds that social economics is logically inconsistent with the pragmatic philosophy. This view has been very clearly and forcibly expressed by Mark A. Lutz at the Third World Congress for Social Economics. Lutz has summarised his conclusions in the following quotation:

Introduction Today we find ourselves at a rather curious historical juncture. World poverty is more of a problem today than it was three decades ago. North‐south relations are more disharmonious than ever and, as a result, the development of the south is more urgent than ever. Yet, at the same time, the main tool of modern social science to tackle this problem, development economics, has turned out to be rather ineffective, throwing thereby the entire field into a deep crisis. It is not much of an exaggeration to claim that development economics as traditionally conceived is so seriously ill that it is not clear whether there is any life left. A leading scholar of the discipline, Alfred Hirschman, has found it necessary to write an essay that sounds more like an obituary than anything else (Hirschman, 1986). The basic tasks that now remain are to assess what went wrong and to explore new directions.

Introduction Relativism of all shades and kinds is in fashion. For some decades, it has been trying to enter the very bastion of the academic heartland by questioning the prevailing cognitive realism in the philosophy of science (Kuhn, Feyerabend). More recently a somewhat different and stronger version of relativism has made some extraordinary advances in literary criticism (the movement of “deconstruction”) and spawned some controversy in the field of law (critical legal studies). The same tendencies have now emerged in architecture (Jencks). More alarmingly, perhaps, in the social sciences we observe a brand new interest in so‐ called “post‐modern” perspectives: post‐modern ethnography in anthropology (Tylor), new voices in sociology (Lash and Urri), and, of course, also the novel ideas representing economics as discourse with a distinctly post‐modern flavor (Amariglio; Rossetti; Milberg; Ruccio).

In her popular Development of Economic Analysis, Ingrid Rima writes early on of the “compatibility” of “emphasis on the state as an instrument to achieve socially optimal results…with what has come to be called social economics”. Subsequently (1978, p. 322; 1986, p. 396), she treats of J.M. Clark's “crucial” contribution to the development (1920s/1930s) of a new type of economics he describes as “social”. Similarly, George F. Rohrlich, in his 1970 introductory essay, “The Challenge of Social Economics”, wrote of “The emerging field of social economics”, and noted that “in the United States the term was used in the 1930s and occasionally thereafter”. More recently (1982), Samuel Cameron singles out Mark A. Lutz's 1980 USE contribution, e.g., for neglecting Charles Devas(op. cit., 1876–1907) “as a contributor to the founding of social economics”, while comparing Devas to “the modern social economist”.

A precise definition of “social economics” has been the subject of much debate for the last 30 years and, as yet, there seems to be no general consensus of opinion. This paper attempts to embrace the apparent pluralism of viewpoints as a temporary instrument to encourage critical debate and dialogue in order to work towards a unified concept of social economics.

The idea of what constitutes rationality has always been central to moral philosophy as well as to modern social science and economics; regardless of the fact that its meaning has also greatly changed during the last five hundred years. While for Aristotle and his followers, full rationality implied not only effective deliberation of means towards any given end, but also that such end had to be rationally selected with the guidance of reason or “practical wisdom”, since the age of Thomas Hobbes and David Humes, the concept of rationality has been reduced to one of seeking the best means to any particular end, wise or unwise. In the process, reason was relegated to mere “reckoning”, of adding and subtracting according to arithmetic rules. The good was simply what was desired, motivated by a physiological appetite for survival or otherwise. As could have been expected, such mechanical mode of reasoning readily provided the rudiments of contemporary computational theories of action, in particular game theory (see Cudd, 1993).

Remarks that Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, admonishing us not to treat others as mere means, can be seen to pave the way for an ethics of worker ownership, where the staff decides and assumes the role of residual claimant. Could large corporations convert worker ownership and still prosper and grow? It is in trying to answer this type of question that scholars all over the world have been interested in the development of what is generally regarded as the world’s most famous and most successful worker co‐operative: the Mondragon Co‐operative Complex. After reviewing some of the major reorganizations at Mondragon, summarizes the co‐operative’s economic performance up to 1995. Assesses the prospects of maintaining economic democracy while competing with large transnational corporations which have access to low‐cost labour in the Third World.

Perceiving discrimination and unequal treatment as a problem implies an underlying value of human equality. Argues that such prescriptive equality is more powerful and more persuasive to the extent that it is built on a presumption of descriptive human equality. Explores the philosophical prerequisites for holding the presumption of actual equality. In the last part, surveys critically the general stance of economics regarding an affirmation of descriptive equality.

The future beckons … a new millennium …