Abstract
In this book I intend to develop norms for an ecologically successful economics. By an ecologically successful economics I mean a theory that has our economies as its domain of research and that is influential in the political arena in the sense that it helps political actors to find effective solutions for the problem of sustainability. My research project thus implicitly makes a distinction between the economic and the political sphere. The economic sphere is the domain about which economics is meant to provide us with knowledge. The political sphere is the domain in which economics is meant to be an influential factor. In the course of my research project I noticed that, within the community of economists, there is some disagreement about whether it is useful to distinguish between the political and the economic sphere or, in other words, to distinguish between economic and political (aspects of) human actions. In this chapter I will argue that this distinction can and should be made.
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Within the community of economists, there tums out to exist some disagreement about whether economics is a social science or not. I consider economics as one of the social sciences.
For a more extensive comparison between the thoughts of Rickert and Weber, see Rein de Wilde (1989, 114–124).
Neurath wrote more than 400 articles, pamphlets and monographs, which, according to Cartwright c.s., are discursively and repetitively written and loosely structured (Cartwright et al. 1996, 4). That is why I should; with respect to a single topic, refer to many places in Neurath’s work in order to be more or less complete.
Neurath describes this purified everyday language as a physicalist language. The meaning of the term “physicalism” shifts from “the language of physics” (Neurath 193Ic, 62) to “universal jargon” or “universal slang” (Neurath 1936e, 155; 1937a, 180). See also Reisch ( 1994, 160 ).
For another critique on Neurath’s unified language project, see O’Neill (1995, 33). O’Neill argues that Neurath’s programme to eliminate all intentional, ethical and metaphysical terms from the (social) sciences — which is clearly the most positivistic element in his work - is at odds with the “non-purified” vocabulary Neurath himself uses in his papers.
Here, I will refer to the third edition of 1984.
Dietz et al. use the terms “material” instead of “classificatory” and “formal” instead of “analytical” (Dietz et al. 1994, 15).
I could also present Public Choice theory as a new institutional, rather than a neo-classical, economics (O’Neill 1994, 202 ). For Public Choice theory criticises (neo-classical) cost-benefit analyses as appropriate instruments to correct (ecological) market failures. The methodology of new institutionalism, however, mainly remains in the tradition of neo-classical economics.
John O’Neill notes that various public-choice-schools exist which disagree with each other in this respect (O’Neill 1994, 203 note 1 ). The plea for limited government is typical for the Virginian School of Public Policy, where Buchanan belongs to. This school bears a clear Austrian mark: Buchanan’s later writings are strongly influenced by Hayek.
Stating that “efficiency” is a standard for a good political constitution does not come down to claiming that some persons can judge existing political constitutions on the base of their privileged, concrete insight in the meaning of “efficiency”. Consider the following quotation: `The market is an institutional process within which individuals interact, one with another, in pursuit of their separate individual objectives, whatever these may be. The great discovery of the eighteenth-century philosophers was that, within appropriately designed laws and institutions, separately self-interested individual behaviour in the market generates a spontaneous order, a pattern of allocational-distributional outcomes that is chosen by no one, yet which is properly classified as an order in that it reflects a maximization of the values of the participating persons. What these values are are defined only in the process itself; the individual values, as such, do not exist outside or independently of the process within which they come to be defined. In this sense, and in this sense only, can the order generated in the market process be labelled or classified as “efficient”. Economists who presume some inherent ability to define that which is “efficient” independently from the behaviour of persons in the market process itself, a definition that is then utilized to evaluate the performance of the market as an institution, these economists presume an arrogance that simply should not be countenanced’ (Buchanan 1986, 88).
Note that Arendt’s interpretation of negative and positive freedom is dissimilar to the conventional interpretation that dates back to Berlin’s political philosophy. For an explanation of the latter interpretation, see De Beus (1989, 11–21).
These paragraphs are based on Bemstein’s reconstruction of Arendt’s concept (Bernstein 1983, 207–223). Arendt herself did not find time to work this concept out systematically. “Judgement” was the topic planned for the third part of her book The Life of the Mind, but Arendt died before she could start this project.
For a clear explanation about Habermas’ interpretation of communicative and instrumental rationality, see Erlauterungen zum Begriff des kommunikativen Handelns, in: Habermas, J. (1984). Vorstudien und Ergänzungen zur Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, p. 571606. 14 Arendt strongly rejects the Modem idea that private wealth is not a private matter, but a public affair. She, therefore, introduces a distinction between social and political questions. Social questions relate to the distribution of wealth. Hence, the existence of poverty is the most prominent social question. Political questions regard questions conceming a dignified, creative organisation of our societies. In Arendt’s view political questions can only be resolved after the social question of poverty is resolved, because political questions ask for political actors, i.e., for free and equal individuals. Social liberation is a condition for political freedom. Bernstein notes that this distinction cannot be upheld, for, if— as Arendt states — every person must be given the opportunity to participate in politics, then a primary political question is how to resolve the social question (Bernstein 1986, 120 ).
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Deblonde, M. (2001). The Economic and the Political Sphere. In: Economics as a Political Muse. The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9767-8_2
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