Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T23:22:51.798Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ETHICS AND THE SCIENCE OF ECONOMICS: ROBBINS'S ENDURING FALLACY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2011

AMOS WITZTUM
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The basic principles of Robbins's Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science are still present in most textbooks in economics. We thus face a combined problem of historical and contemporary nature. Robbins's assertion concerning the ethics–economics relationship has two main difficulties. Firstly, the presumption of means–ends analysis, which is oblivious of the ends people seek to promote, is not as neutral as it appears. Robbins chooses to ignore the ends by focusing on cost minimization. This implicitly (though not inherently) suggests another end—wealth, or means, maximization—which by no means can be considered as ethically neutral. Secondly, there is an implicit assumption that whatever the ends people seek to promote, there will always be a coordinated outcome to their actions. As competitive prices are the means to achieve waste minimization (through proper pricing by opportunity costs), the assumed coordination must be that of general equilibrium and, thus, cooperative-based coordination must be excluded.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 467 - 486
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aristotle. 1957. The Politics. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1976. Ethics. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Backhouse, Roger E., and Medema, Steven G.. 2009. “Defining Economics: The Long Road to Acceptance of Robbins’s Definition.” In Cowell, Frank and Witztum, Amos, eds., Lionel Robbins’s Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. 75th Anniversary Conference Proceeding. London: STICERD, LSE, 209–230.Google Scholar
Blaug, Mark. 1980. The Methodology of Economics. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blaug, Mark. 1990. “Comment on O’Brien’s ‘Lionel Robbins and the Austrian Connection.’” In Caldwell, Bruce, ed., Carl Menger and His Legacy in Economics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 185–189.Google Scholar
Colander, David. 2009. “What Was ‘it’ that Robbins Was Defining.” In Cowell, Frank and Witztum, Amos, eds., Lionel Robbins’s Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. 75th Anniversary Conference Proceeding. London: STICERD, LSE.Google Scholar
Hodgson, Geoffrey M. 2001. How Economics Forgot History. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howson, Susan. 2004. “The Origins of Lionel Robbins’s Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science.” History of Political Economy 36 (3): 413–443.Google Scholar
Kirzner, Israel. 1999. “Philip Wicksteed: The British Austrian.” In Holcombe, Randall G, ed., 15 Great Austrian Economists. Auburn AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 101–112.Google Scholar
Mises, Ludwig von. 1978. Notes and Recollections [translated by Sennholz, Hans]. South Holland, Ill: Libertarian Press.Google Scholar
O’Brien, Denise P. 1990. “Lionel Robbins and the Austrian Connection.” In Caldwell, Bruce, ed., Carl Menger and His Legacy in Economics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 155–184.Google Scholar
Plato. 1974. The Republic. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Robbins, Lionel. 1930. “On a Certain Ambiguity in the Conception of Stationary Equilibrium.” The Economic Journal 40 (1): 194–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robbins, Lionel. 1933. “Introduction.” In Wicksteed, P.H., Common Sense and Political Economy. London: George Routlege & Sons Ltd, pp. v–xxx.Google Scholar
Robbins, Lionel. 1934. “Remarks upon Certain Aspects of the Theory of Costs.” Economic Journal 44 (1): 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robbins, Lionel. 1935. Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Salerno, J.T. 2002. “ Friedrich von Wieser and Friedrich Hayek: The General Equilibrium Tradition in Austrian Economics.” Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humanitaines 12: 357–377.Google Scholar
Smith, Adam. 1976. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Edited by Raphael, and Macfie, , Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Walras, Leon. 1984. Element of Pure Economics. Translated by Jaffe, W.. Philadelphia: Orion.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1922. Economy and Society. Edited by Roth, G. and Wittich, C.. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1947. The Theory of Social and Economic Organisation. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Wicksteed, Philip H. 1933. The Common Sense of Political Economy. London: George Routledge & Sons Ltd.Google Scholar
Wieser, Friedrich Von. [1927] 1967. Social Economics. Translated by Ford Hinrichs, A.. New York: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers.Google Scholar
Witztum, Amos. 2009. “Wants Versus Needs: A Smithian Based Notion of General Equilibrium.” In Young, Jeffrey, ed., Elgar Companion for Adam Smith. London: Edward Elgar, pp. 141–172.Google Scholar
Witztum, Amos. 2010. “Interdependence, the Invisible Hand and Equilibrium in Adam Smith.” History of Political Economy 42 (1): 155–192.Google Scholar