“The Hardest of All the Problems”

Kuehn, Daniel

doi:10.23941/ejpe.v15i1.658

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 31 publications

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“…This methodological stance, coupled with an epistemological approach of abstract mathematical deduction, reflects key aspects of current economic orthodoxy [1,2,25]. Value judgments are excluded, and interpersonal comparisons of utility are reduced to the Pareto principle, which hampers debates about (global) social justice, since material improvements for one person are only recognized as such if no other person is made worse off [26,27]. In times of excessive resource depletion, material overconsumption, and unsustainable affluence in high-income countries, utility comparisons based on Paretian welfare economics limit the scope of social-ecological policy debates to address poverty or income and wealth inequities.…”

Section: The Neoliberal and Positivist Foundations Of Economics Educa...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking Economics Education for Sustainable Development: A Posthumanist Practice Approach

Tallgauer

Schank

2023

Sustainability

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This conceptual paper proposes a posthumanist practice approach as an alternative onto-epistemological framework for economics education. It applies a critical literature review to examine the positivist and neoliberal foundations of mainstream economics education. We find that the prevailing economics education promotes a decontextualized and hyperrational perspective on economic phenomena and human behavior, which impedes sustainable development goals by pushing pressing socio-ecological challenges to the periphery. In response, we propose a posthumanist practice approach grounded in social practice theory, which aims to provide a more holistic, contextualized, nature-immanent, and materially mediated understanding of human behavior and economic realities. By emphasizing practical learning through knowledgeable doing, relational entanglement, and multisensory interactions, the posthumanist practice approach recognizes economic knowledge to be situated, pluralistic, and shaped by interdependent human/nonhuman relations. This opens up a more ethical and relational way of understanding, learning, and acting that helps to reconnect the social with the natural and to align economics education with the goals of sustainable development. In order to apply a posthumanist onto-epistemological foundation for economics education, we provide guidance by outlining appropriate pedagogical methods, such as diversifying learning environments, embracing community and nature engagement as well as service learning, and revising the role of educators.

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Section: The Neoliberal and Positivist Foundations Of Economics Educa...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking Economics Education for Sustainable Development: A Posthumanist Practice Approach

Tallgauer

Schank

2023

Sustainability

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Who is to put the bell on the cat? Democracy, dictatorship, and James M. Buchanan's early 1980s involvement with Pinochet's Chile

Farrant,

Tarko

2024

Southern Economic Journal

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Although Milton Friedman's mid‐1970s involvement with Pinochet's Chile has generated much controversy, the claim that James M. Buchanan was similarly eager to provide Pinochet's military dictatorship with early 1980s policy advice is increasingly reported as an established fact in the vast scholarly literature on neoliberalism. This article invokes a wealth of previously ignored primary source material that sheds significant new light on Buchanan's early 1980s involvement with Chile. In particular, we evaluate whether Buchanan's May 1980 visit to Chile was an integral part of the Pinochet junta's late 1970s and early 1980s efforts to draft a new constitution. Similarly, we evaluate whether Buchanan's ideas had any significant influence on the views of Pedro Ibáñez and Carlos Cáceres (the most anti‐democratic members of Pinochet's Council of State and the primary hosts of Buchanan's May 1980 visit to Chile). Finally, we shed important new light on Buchanan's participation in the highly controversial late 1981 Mont Pèlerin Society meeting in Chile.

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Value Judgements, Positivism and Utility Comparisons in Economics

Drakopoulos

2023

J Bus Ethics

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The issue of interpersonal comparisons of utility is about the possibility (or not) of comparing the utility or welfare or the mental states in general, of different individuals. Embedded in the conceptual framework of utilitarianism, interpersonal comparisons were admissible in economics as part of the theoretical justification of welfare policies until the first decades of the twentieth century. Under the strong influence of the scientific philosophy of positivism as reflected in the works of early neoclassical economists and as epitomized by Lionel Robbins, utility comparisons were subsequently rejected as a value judgement. Robbins’ methodological stance is still prevalent among mainstream economists. Despite the explicit rejection of comparability by the majority of economists, interpersonal comparisons are necessary for many key policy issues, such as progressive taxation, social welfare policies, GDP-based welfare comparisons, cost–benefit analysis, and public goods provision. In this paper, the case of interpersonal utility comparisons is discussed as an illustrative example of the usefulness of the study of the role of value judgements, and generally of the interrelationship between ethics and economics. It is argued that the current tension between theory and policy practice might be resolved through the efforts of prominent economists and philosophers to challenge positivism, and especially its problematic treatment of value judgements and of ethical assumptions in general. The discussion also provides more strength to the view that policy makers and their economic advisers cannot avoid ethical questions in their analysis of the workings of the economic system.

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“The Hardest of All the Problems”

Cited by 7 publications

References 31 publications

Rethinking Economics Education for Sustainable Development: A Posthumanist Practice Approach

Rethinking Economics Education for Sustainable Development: A Posthumanist Practice Approach

Who is to put the bell on the cat? Democracy, dictatorship, and James M. Buchanan's early 1980s involvement with Pinochet's Chile

Value Judgements, Positivism and Utility Comparisons in Economics

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