Ethical and Political Non-Neutrality of Neoclassical Economics

Abstract

The mainstream of modern economic theory is built upon two crucial assumptions, namely that (i) tastes are given, and (ii) individuals are rational, self-interested economic beings. An important, additional assumption normally made in the economic literature is that of ‘Nash conjectures’, that is each individual, when deciding his own utility-maximizing action, takes the behaviour of everyone else as given.

This is a slightly amended version of my (1992) paper, ‘On Altrusim and Cooperation’, reprinted here by permission.