The purpose of this paper is to examine how the social question, die soziale Frage, is treated in the periodical literature of English language economics.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how the social question, die soziale Frage, is treated in the periodical literature of English language economics.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines every reference to the question in the most important English language economic journals.
Findings
Considering that more than a century has passed, there are few references. By 1900, Anglophone economists virtually lost what little interest they ever had in the social question. Continental European economists have always made up the vast majority of those concerned with the social question. There has never been agreement about what the social question is or how to remedy it. It has always been defined very differently at different times and within and among countries. The political, social, economic and cultural contexts are important determinants of discussions about it and policies to address the social problems to which it refers. In order for a social question to be translated into social reform, specific parts of it must become social problems. Political, cultural and social changes in Europe require entire new ways of thinking about social reform. Reasons for this are discussed.
Originality/value
The paper offers insights into how the social question is treated in English language periodicals.
Details
Keywords
Jean‐Michel Josselin and Alain Marciano
Provides a discussion of the spontaneous order approach to the making of the future European constitution. We thus investigate the normative content of collective decisions in the…
Abstract
Provides a discussion of the spontaneous order approach to the making of the future European constitution. We thus investigate the normative content of collective decisions in the Scottish Enlightenment tradition. Conditions of rightness depend on very strong assumptions. They shape a system of natural law as a local public good. When Humean sympathy ensures homogeneous preferences, it prevents free‐riding and rent‐seeking as well. In this quite specific context, spontaneous order would also bridge the gap between the is and the ought. However, attempts to enlarge the size or scope of such societies would require a formal contractual order. But the latter would have to define what rightness a priori means.
Details
Keywords
Jean‐Michel G. Josselin and Alain Marciano
The article examines the issue of free speech in a law and economics perspective. The property rights approach is contrasted with the common law and constitutional standpoints…
Abstract
The article examines the issue of free speech in a law and economics perspective. The property rights approach is contrasted with the common law and constitutional standpoints. Consequentialist and market efficiency may not provide adequate criteria for judging limitations to freedom of speech. Constitutional instruments may then be required.
Details
Keywords
The Coase theorem is associated with Stigler because Stigler coined the term. The object of this paper is to show that Stigler’s Coase theorem is Stiglerian for deeper – namely…
Abstract
The Coase theorem is associated with Stigler because Stigler coined the term. The object of this paper is to show that Stigler’s Coase theorem is Stiglerian for deeper – namely, methodological – reasons. We argue that, convinced as he was by the importance of Coase’s message, Stigler also believed that this message – such as presented in “The Federal Communications Commission” (1959) or “The Problem of Social Cost” (1962) – was not scientific. Hence, he had to transform it into a theorem to give it a scientific dimension. This is what we try to show by presenting Stigler’s methodology and by confronting it to the methodology used in Coase’s articles.
Details
Keywords
Andrew Farrant and Maria Pia Paganelli
Can we model politics as exclusively based on self-interest, leaving virtue aside? How much romance is there in the study of politics? We show that James Buchanan, a founder of…
Abstract
Can we model politics as exclusively based on self-interest, leaving virtue aside? How much romance is there in the study of politics? We show that James Buchanan, a founder of public choice and constitutional political economy, reintroduces a modicum of romance into politics, despite claiming that his work is the study of “politics without romance”: Buchanan’s model needs an ethical attitude to defend rules against rent-seeking.
We claim that Adam Smith, more than David Hume, should be considered one of the primary intellectual influences on Buchanan’s public choice and constitutional political economy. It is commonly believed that Hume assumes in politics every man ought to be considered a knave, making him an influence on Buchanan’s idea of politics without romance. Yet, it is Smith who, like Buchanan, describes rent-seeking and suggests that public virtues may be the remedy through which good rules maintaining liberty and prosperity can be generated and enforced. Smith, like Buchanan, rejects sole reliance on economic incentives: the study of politics needs some romance.