Marginalism

O papel dos Princípios de Economia, obra magna de Alfred Marshall, foi proeminente no processo de consolidação da revolução marginalista e posterior hegemonização da teoria neoclássica na ciência econômica. A escola neoclássica moderna inclui em seu corpo explicativo diversas formulações originadas em Marshall, em alguns casos na forma quase original, em outros com maior grau de formalização matemática ou desenvolvimento teórico. Destarte, a crítica à obra marshalliana é necessária não somente para fazer uma genealogia das ideias dominantes, mas igualmente para perceber que as polêmicas e problemas centrais das formulações modernas também se apresentam nas origens do seu desenvolvimento, não sendo, portanto, resultado meramente de formas que a teoria assume ao longo do tempo, mas sim de sua fundamentação ontológico teórica ou, poderia dizer, de sua teoria do valor. É a partir desse pensamento que coloco, como objetivo principal deste trabalho, realizar uma crítica ontológica da teoria do valor marshalliana, desenvolvida nos Princípios, e, ao mesmo tempo, a defesa da teoria marxiana como um discurso teórico alternativo com maior poder explanatório. O resultado a que chego é que, justamente por causa da ontologia que o autor assume como base da teoria do valor, as relações sociais de produção próprias do modo de produção capitalista são desde o princípio retiradas da análise, e assim a teoria não pode conhecer o principal mecanismo causal dos eventos empíricos da economia. Portanto não pode entender de maneira satisfatória esses próprios eventos.

Value without Fetish presents the first in-depth English-language study of the influential Japanese economist Uno Kōzō‘s (1897-1977) theory of ‘pure capitalism’ in the light of the method and object of Marx’s Critique of Political Economy. A close analysis of the theories of value, production and reproduction, and crisis in Uno’s central texts from the 1930s to the 1970s reveals his departure from Marx’s central insights about the fetish character of the capitalist mode of production – a departure that Lange shows can be traced back to the failed epistemology of value developed in Uno’s earliest writings. By disavowing the complex relation between value and fetish that structures Marx’s critique, Uno adopts the paradigms of neoclassical theories to present an apology rather than a critique of capitalism.

Il presente lavoro cerca di dare un resoconto complessivo, da un punto di vista eminentemente filosofico, della riflessione di Ludwig von Mises (e con essa del punto di vista della Scuola Austriaca di economia) nell'ambito dell'epistemologia delle scienze sociali. Partendo dall'eredità mengeriana, dalla  Theorie des subjektiven Wertes  e dalla rivoluzione marginalista si mostra come Mises, dal concetto fondamentale di Azione, trascendendo e amplificando l'analisi sui fondamenti della scienza economica, abbia elaborato un originale paradigma epistemologico di matrice kantiana che investe il sapere tout-court e correlato ad esso una proposta antropologica coerente che giunge fino ad  essere la base di una concreta politica economica.
(Il testo seguente contiene ampli stralci di The Ultimate Foundations of Economic Science, inedito in italiano e tradotti per la prima volta da me per questo lavoro e qui largamente analizzato)

INDICE DELL' OPERA

PROFILO BIOGRAFICO E BIBLIOGRAFICO pp. 1-8

CAPITOLO I: MISES NELLA TRADIZIONE AUSTRIACA: DAL MARGINALISMO ALLA SCIENZA GENERALE DELL’AZIONE UMANA

- 1.1 I PRODROMI DELLA PRASSEOLOGIA NELLA RIVOLUZIONE MARGINALISTA pp. 9-24
- 1.2 PRASSEOLOGIA E CATALLATTICA pp. 25-35

CAPITOLO II: LA CATEGORIA DELL’AZIONE E LO STATUTO EPISTEMOLOGICO DELLA PRASSEOLOGIA

- 2.1 LA CATEGORIA DELL’AZIONE E I SUOI ATTRIBUTI ANALITICI: L’HOMO AGENS, RAZIONALITA' E TEMPORALITA' DELL’AZIONE UMANA
pp. 36-63
- 2.2 NOMOS E TELOS: FINALISMO DELL’AZIONE UMANA E LO STATUTO EPISTEMOLOGICO DELLA PRASSEOLOGIA pp. 64-99

CAPITOLO III: HOMO AGENS: SOGGETTIVISMO, INDIVIDUALISMO, ANTROPOLOGIA

- 3.1 LA THEORIE DES SUBJEKTIVES WERTES: LA STRUTTURA DEL GIUDIZIO DI VALORE E IL PRINCIPIO DELL’ “UTILITA’RAZIONALE”
pp. 100-119
- 3.2 IL PRINCIPIO DELL’INDIVIDUALISMO METODOLOGICO: ANALISI E NATURA DELLA SOCIETA', LA RIVOLUZIONE/ASSOLUTIZZAZIONE ANTROPOLOGICA DELL’HOMO AGENS pp. 119-160

BIBLIOGRAFIA p. 161

... Their differing judgments reflected divergent political outlooks that placed varying emphasis on the proper role of government as an ameliorative social force. ... Washington, DC: NationalCommunication Association. ... America's Struggle Against Poverty 1900-1994. ...

The scientific methodology of classical physics has been a constant influence in the development of orthodox economics. Clear signs of this can be found in the works of many classical economists such as Smith, Say, Cairnes  and Mill. The physics influence became more apparent with the emergence of marginalism. The economic thought of F. Y. Edgeworth, however, is the peak of the influence of classical physics to economics. In Edgeworth’s Mathematical Psychics, the identification of maximum energy in physics with that of the maximum pleasure in economic calculus, is central in his thought. In the same manner, I. Fisher, the founder of marginalism in the US, promoted a classical physics based economic methodology. The close analogy of physics and economics concepts and the application of tools from hydrodynamics to economic theory, are basic characteristics of his work. These views eventually dominated orthodox economic methodology. The paper argues that, apart from establishing the  physics scientific ideal in economics, both of these authors provided the methodological justification for its adoption in economics. It also  examines their subsequent influence on the formation of the current methodological approach in orthodox economics. In particular, it discusses  their influence on key components of current mainstream economics such as: extensive use of  mathematics, aversion to methodological discourse and anti-psychologism.

Primo articolo sullo stato dell'economia politica dopo la critica di Marx. Si esamina la teoria marginalista e il suo carattere ideologico. All'eleganza formale della teoria si abbina l'inadeguatezza dei suoi postulati essenziali e quindi la sua inutilizzabilità per comprendere le caratteristiche e le leggi di movimento dell'economia capitalista. Viene anche esaminato il contributo di un suo precursore, John Stuart Mill, e di un suo successore, Joseph Schumpeter

Autor: Daniel Lahoud

Español

El marginalismo fue un fenómeno que transformó la economía y de ser una simple metafísica que iba entre la filosofía moral y la historia, terminó por convertirse en una ciencia propiamente dicha. Este movimiento vincula el origen del valor al uso del objeto para el individuo. Esta nueva visión tuvo tres interpretaciones que son independientes la una de la otra, de hecho el presente ensayo es el intento de resumir las tres visiones del marginalismo que le dieron origen a las tres escuelas la inglesa (de Cambridge) que al final fue tomada por la figura dominante de Marshall, la de Lausanne y la de Austria.

Palabras clave: Marginalismo, Utilidad, Valor, Jevons, Walras, Menger

English

Marginalism was a phenomenon that transformed the economy and from being a simple metaphysics that was between moral philosophy and history, it ended up becoming a science proper. This movement links the origin of the value to the use of the object for the individual. This new vision had three interpretations that are independent of the other, in fact the present was the attempt to summarize the three views of marginalism that gave rise to the three schools of the English (Cambridge) that was ultimately taken by the figure dominant of Marshall, Laussanne and Austria.

Keywords: Marginalism, Utility, Value, Jevons, Walras, Mengerm

In this paper I trace the dialogical and narrative dimensions of the philosophical tradition and explore how they are reconfigured in the notion of community of philosophical inquiry (CPI), the mainstay of the collection of novels and discussion plans known as Philosophy for Children. After considering the ontology and epistemology of dialogue, I argue that narrative has replaced exposition in our understanding of philosophical discourse and that CPI represents a narrative context in which truth comes to represent the best story, in a discursive location in which there are always multiple stories. Finally, I raise the issue of children's philosophical voice. Can children philosophize, and if they can, do they do so in a voice different from adults'? If so, what are the distinctive features of that voice? I assert that it is children's historical marginalization in the Western construction of rationality that now – as that rationality undergoes its crisis – makes of them, like women and other “natives,” privileged strangers to the tradition, who are, through CPI, enabled to enter it through dialogue and narrative.

Phillip Wicksteed's ideas played an important role in the history of economic methodology. This is because of two reasons: The first was that his views represent the starting point of the deliberate attempt to expel normative issues from marginalist economic analysis. The second reason was that his ideas influenced his disciple L. Robbins, who was one of the first theorists to set the methodological basis for an allegedly value-free economic science. The paper examines Wicksteed's conception of a positive economic science and the role of normative aspects. In the same context, his views on the nature and the role of economic man, and his analysis of selfish and altruistic behaviour are also discussed. Finally, the work combines the above with Wicksteed's economic methodology in order to asses his overall role and influence on the development of the trend towards a value-free economic theory.

Maffeo Pantaleoni (1857-1924) è ancora di solito considerato un autore che coordina e sintetizza le conoscenze economiche diffuse nella sua epoca. Un protomarginalista che non vuol rompere con Ricardo e con Ferrara. Un marshalliano che non vuol rompere con Walras e Pareto. Uno studioso di dinamica che elabora schemi particolari da inserire in un’impostazione teorica ormai consolidata.
Questa monografia ne propone un’immagine diversa. La sua riflessione è unitaria e attraversa criticamente tutte le sistemazioni teoretiche coeve. Il suo messaggio centrale ci suggerisce che se vogliamo capire gli atti umani in quanto umani, siamo obbligati ad impiegare il linguaggio delle intenzioni, dei risultati attesi, delle norme e dei valori. Che l’identità dei soggetti è variegata, contraddittoria e dipendente da entità collettive. Che la rete delle istituzioni è periodicamente sconvolta da scopi e atti nuovi, emergenti specialmente da pulsioni opportunistiche. Che mentre non si danno teorie generali da oggetti così eterogenei e mutevoli, possiamo individuare e analizzare classi universalizzabili di eventi specifici.

Although most of the marginalist economists' methodology was influenced by 19th century classical physics, the work of second generation marginalist Francis Ysidro Edgeworth represents the highest point of classical physics influence to the development of mainstream economic methodology. Edgeworth's close parallelism between celestial and social mechanics expressed in his analogies between utility and energy and the principle of utility maximization to maximum energy, are important indications of the physics scientific ideal for economics. Subsequent leading theorists were not as explicit, although economic theory continued to be influenced by physics scientific ideal as the work of Pareto, Fisher and Samuelson indicates. However, the physics methodological framework has made a recent reappearance in the relatively new field of econophysics. Although there are methodological similarities, there are also important differences between mainstream economics and econophysics. Econophysicists' emphasis to statistical mechanics rather to mechanical models, their reservations towards rational agent theory and their rejection of many standard assumptions of mainstream economics, are examples of such differences. This might also explain the resistance of mainstream economic theorists to incorporate econophysics into economics. The paper examines the above from a methodological viewpoint. It also discusses the possible reasons for this historical development and its implications for economic methodology.

Phillip Wicksteed's ideas played an important role in the history of economic methodology. This is because of two reasons: The first was that his views represent the starting point of the deliberate attempt to expel normative issues from marginalist economic analysis. The second reason was that his ideas influenced his disciple L. Robbins, who was one of the first theorists to set the methodological basis for an allegedly value-free economic science. The paper examines Wicksteed's conception of a positive economic science and the role of normative aspects. In the same context, his views on the nature and the role of economic man, and his analysis of selfish and altruistic behaviour are also discussed. Finally, the work combines the above with Wicksteed's economic methodology in order to asses his overall role and influence on the development of the trend towards a value-free economic theory.

This paper traces the intellectual trajectories of the first stand-alone theories of action, understood as both axiologically neutral and quasi-scientific from a methodological point of view. I argue that the rise of action theory of this kind corresponds to a particular moment of dissatisfaction within Western thought, and as such, it tells us far more about the history of philosophy than the subject itself. I conclude by explaining why subsequent failures to provide an acceptable theory of action are not accidental. On the contrary, such failures owe themselves probably to the fact that formulating a theory of action is neither propitious nor useful. Thus, the most valuable lesson we can learn from philosophical desires for a theory of action is that we should take co-action as the starting point in our normative investigations, rather than positing action simpliciter as a problem to solve. That is, instead of postulating a theory of action, we should think of a paradigm shift, whereby we move away from a representational paradigm in philosophy towards a co-actional one.

In this paper I trace the dialogical and narrative dimensions of the philosophical tradition and explore how they are reconfigured in the notion of community of philosophical inquiry (CPI), the mainstay of the collection of novels and discussion plans known as Philosophy for Children. After considering the ontology and epistemology of dialogue, I argue that narrative has replaced exposition in our understanding of philosophical discourse and that CPI represents a narrative context in which truth comes to represent the best story, in a discursive location in which there are always multiple stories. Finally, I raise the issue of children's philosophical voice. Can children philosophize, and if they can, do they do so in a voice different from adults'? If so, what are the distinctive features of that voice? I assert that it is children's historical marginalization in the Western construction of rationality that now-as that rationality undergoes its crisismakes of them, like women and other "natives," privileged strangers to the tradition, who are, through CPI, enabled to enter it through dialogue and narrative.

In this paper I trace the dialogical and narrative dimensions of the philosophical tradition and explore how they are reconfigured in the notion of community of philosophical inquiry (CPI), the mainstay of the collection of novels and discussion plans known as Philosophy for Children. After considering the ontology and epistemology of dialogue, I argue that narrative has replaced exposition in our understanding of philosophical discourse and that CPI represents a narrative context in which truth comes to represent the best story, in a discursive location in which there are always multiple stories. Finally, I raise the issue of children's philosophical voice. Can children philosophize, and if they can, do they do so in a voice different from adults'? If so, what are the distinctive features of that voice? I assert that it is children's historical marginalization in the Western construction of rationality that now-as that rationality undergoes its crisismakes of them, like women and other "natives," privileged strangers to the tradition, who are, through CPI, enabled to enter it through dialogue and narrative.

The general purpose of this paper it is to highlight the importance of Cournot as a link between the classical and neoclassical economic thought and his mathematical economics as a bridge that, saving the utilitarian stream, departs from Ricardo to reach Marshall. To that end, we begin placing him in the context of the forerunners of marginalism, relating him with his contemporaries Thünen and Gossen and their works. The Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth (1838) was his first book on economics and it is considered as the one with broader significance of the three ones that he issued on this matter. Its title starkly contrasts with the corresponding works of the mentioned two others pioneers-The Isolated State (1826-63) and Development of the Laws of Human Relationships and of the Rules to be Derived Therefrom for Human Action (1854). And if, on one hand, its heading announces the novelty: the application of mathematical analysis; on the other, it also preaches that it is going to be deployed on an old subject: the theory of wealth, the main issue of the researches developed in the most emblematic works of classical authors. When he published it in 1838, Smith's Wealth of Nations have been issued more than sixty years before, more than thirty years before Say's Traité d'économie politique, but less than twenty before the third edition of Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, and ten years before the Principles of Political Economy of J.S. Mill. That Cournot was familiar with the works of the three first ones becomes evident in Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth; where Smith is mentioned near a dozen times, Say on six occasions and Ricardo on two. We argue that Ricardo in his Principles, did never employ the noun "marginal", but deploys a marginalist reasoning in and after his theory on rent; which let him to arrive to the conclusion that the price of corn is set by the produce of those fields which do not pay rent, or, in today's economic words, that "marginal lands" set the price of corn, which is the equivalent to say that the price of corn would be equal to its marginal cost. On these bases, we believe that it is legitimate to ask ourselves if Cournot, as the mathematician that he was, did not find in Ricardo not only a powerful example which justified and animated him to the use of mathematical language to establish and develop economic theories, and this also pertains to the employment of the marginal principle on cost and revenue of the firm which so well fits with differential calculus. Cournot's Recherches did not have any academic echo or public audience either within or outside France. With the expectation of extending the potential demand of his ideas, a quarter of century later he published his Principes de la théorie des richesses (1863) (Principles of the Theory of Wealth); where, as can be easily seen, the noun mathématiques was supressed from the title; and from its content too. In 1877, the last year of Cournot's lifetime, he issued his Revue sommaire des doctrines economique; at its Foreword, he explains that the pathway that he had opened nearly forty years ago with his Reserarches has been extended by Jevons; and his algorithm has been used by Walras to state in turn a more developed new theory. In the Preface to the second edition (1879) of Jevons's The Theory of Political Economy, he devotes some pages to Cournot, where he prophetically judges the Researches; a work which had not influence on Jevons's Theory. Walras,-whose father was Cournot's schoolmate, was familiar with his work from his youth-, resolved at his Eléments d'économie politique pure (1874-77) a question raised by Cournot, considered by him as mathematically unsolvable: the determination of the general equilibrium of the economic system. Marshall always denied any influence from Jevons or Menger on his theory of demand but always acknowledged not only Cournot's influence on it but also gave him credit from his analytical contributions to theory of the firm and considered him one of his masters. In view of the above, we conclude that we can consider Cournot as a bridge that, saving the utilitarian stream, departs from Ricardo to reach Marshall, and his Researches as a link between classical and neoclassical economic thought.

This paper tries to elucidate if-until the arrival of Neoclassical-Keynesian synthesis-successive subjects studied by Economics, and the means employed to do so, confer some kind of unity and continuity so that we can then speak of a same nature of economics throughout its history; and if it is so: which are those common links?, which constants are these?; or, if on the contrary: which are the decisive factors of this change in the nature of economics?, when did they begin to act and why? To answer these questions we recur to the history of economic thought and to some of the appropriate texts of its major figures to contrast our working hypothesis: That changes in the form are the effect of the changes in the subject under consideration or in the searching for new answers to new or old questions; questions, sometimes, arising from historical context reasons in which this work was born and, other times, coming from internal logic reasons on which the works were based. In base to the answers found, we conclude that since Economy became-by means of classical authors-an autonomous and self-sustained thought, we can not talk about a change of its nature; however, in its evolution it has experienced ruptures, but also recuperations, in its form and contents by external and internal reasons; its consolidation at the Academy have been parallel to its proliferation in form of Schools, to a progressive specialization simultaneous with a furthering of the field as subject of study.

Egoismo 3277 nient'altro che l'essere stesso di ogni cosa: da qui la decisa richiesta, da parte di Nietzsche, di sospensione di ogni giudizio morale, in quanto pretesa contraddittoria di fondare quella che è già un'evidenza, l'evidenza stessa della realtà. Ogni pretesa che tenti di abbellire tale verità, fondandola su altro (come lo Sollen kantiano), camuffandola di trascendenza (come in Platone), o ammantandola delle vesti del «valore», finisce di fatto per allontanarsi da essa, cioè dall'affermazione, in sé nient'affatto scandalosa, dell'egoismo essenzialmente connesso a ogni cosa, a ogni atto, essendo che «essere» e «autoaffermazione» sono identici. In ciò consiste l'enorme sforzo nietzscheano di riportare la vita -e l'egoismo ad essa essenzialmente inerente -alla sua primitiva «innocenza». Per il positivismo, l'egoismo deve essere superato nel «vivre pour autrui», nell'altruismo, termine che si trova usato per la prima volta in Comte (Catéchisme positiviste, Paris 1890 3 , p. 51). Spencer critica questa tesi di Comte, proponendo l'eliminazione dell'antinomia tra egoismo e altruismo nell'ego-altruismo (H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, London 1855, parte VIII, capp. 6-7; cfr. anche Data of Ethics, capp. 11-14, tr. it. di G. Salvadori, Torino 1908 3 ). IV. CONCLUSIONI. -Si può quindi notare come, di tutte queste riflessioni, solo quella nietzscheana abbia saputo fornire un'interpretazione affatto originale della nozione di egoismo, la quale fosse al contempo completamente sganciata da quelle di soggettivismo ed egocentrismo. In generale, nell'attuale riflessione filosofica, tali nozioni vengono preferite, perché più esatte, a quella di egoismo, la prima nell'ambito teoretico, la seconda in quello morale. Così, le critiche alla coloritura totalitaria presente nella modernità sin dal suo inizio, come quella di E. Levinas, fanno del soggettivismo il loro principale bersaglio. Per quanto attiene la riflessione morale, e quindi la nozione di egocentrismo, questo viene visto come quella forma di cattivo amore di sé, la quale va evitata in nome di una forma sostenibile, o addirittura auspicabile, di egoismo. Tale è l'impostazione, ad esempio, di autori di area anglosassone come l'americana Ayn Rand, la quale, rifacendosi a un'impostazione di tipo aristotelico, unisce l'idea per la quale l'uomo è un fine in sé, con quella per la quale egli deve

‘Teoria della Distruzione del Valore’: teoria elaborata da Massimo Morigi afferente al ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’, al ‘Repubblicanesimo’, al ‘Neo-repubblicanesimo’, al ‘Marxismo’ e al ‘Neo-marxismo’. Pur condividendo la critica di Karl Marx all’individualismo metodologico dell’economia classica (in specie la critica ad Adam Smith e David Ricardo, individualismo metodologico che poi sarà in seguito trasmesso anche all’economia neoclassica o marginalismo), la ‘Teoria della Distruzione del Valore’ rovescia la teoria del plusvalore di Karl Marx, affermando che il rapporto sociale che va sotto il nome di ‘capitalismo’ non opera una sottrazione del valore del lavoro erogato dal lavoratore a vantaggio del capitale ma, invece, una distruzione del valore di questo lavoro, distruzione del valore che si evidenzia sul “libero mercato” dove s’incontrano – entrambi formalmente liberi – gli operai (decisori omega-strategici), che apportano su questo mercato un lavoro svalutato (distrutto quindi nel suo valore) originatosi proprio dalla libertà di questo mercato (ossia dalla sua mancanza di regole) e i datori di lavoro capitalisti (decisori alfa-strategici) che così possono avvalersi di questo valore-lavoro effettivamente svalutato (o, meglio, distrutto).

Most revolutions against capitalism have occurred in ‘backward’ and Third World societies, and they have divided and disarrayed Marxisms in the West. One key reason, this paper argues, is intellectual. When, long ago, Marxists surrendered to the bourgeois challenge to Marx – neoclassical economics – developing, in place of Marx’s critical political economy, a ‘Marxist economics’, they lost touch with Marx’s analysis of capitalism as contradictory value production. That analysis could illuminate how capitalism’s contradictions drive its imperialist expansionism and how and why resistance to it must, equally necessarily, take national forms. As a result, major currents of Marxism in the West either have paid attention to imperialism and anti-imperialist resistance but without Marx’s analysis of capitalism as contradictory value production or have insisted that their (mistaken) conception of Marx’s analysis implies that capitalism has no necessary connection with imperialism. Neither tradition can actually develop Marxism to comprehend the actual historical record of revolutions since Marx’s time. Neither can inform new mobilisations against capitalism, whether in or outside its homelands. It is high time we return to Marx’s analysis of capitalism as value production and develop it.

The general objective of this dissertation is to argue that religions and religious arguments have a place in the discussion of the definition of good and justice to society and to human development. So it makes it necessary to discuss the relationship of philosophical theories the Utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham, the Justice as Fairness of John Rawls and the Capability Approach of Amartya Sen with religions. It is also necessary to repel the arguments that these philosophies have that religions do not participate in the discussion of the common good, justice and human development. Finally will be presented the Human Development Index of Religions (HDI-R), which follows the same methodology used by the United Nations Development to compose the HDI in its human development reports, and seek to explain the reasons for variations HDI-R among different religions.

Consumer theory is considered to be the hard core of the neoclassical canon. The present work traces  the  various historical stages which  led  to the  acceptance  of the theory, and  attempts  to offer some possible explanations for its eventual establishment.  The paper starts with a brief  historical discussion  of  the establishment of the canon of the marginalist  consumer theory. Subsequently, it dis¬cusses the main points of attack by alternative schools  of thought. Finally, as part of the assessment, the paper will utilize period and phenomenological histories of thought in appraising the fashionable or non-fashionable way that this theory found a permanent place in the general texts of the history of economics. The discussion might contribute to the understanding of the dominance of mainstream consumer theory and the way that it took its paramount place in modern economics.