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Economics is supposed to be value-neutral, but do economists question the extent to which it isn't value-neutral in its assumptions and views of the world? Simi
by claudiawerner 8y ago
Economics is supposed to be value-neutral, but do economists question the extent to which it isn't value-neutral in its assumptions and views of the world? Similarly, science is often declared to be value-neutral, but it accepts certain philosophical ideas without really investigating them. In your example, in many hypothetical societies (not too different from our own) the very fact of hiring the Kongolese would be alien. In fact, the idea of hiring, as in, getting someone to do something for you, and to ask that they align their conatus to yours (in the modern sense) changes in the period of a lifetime.
In short, I think that the assumptions and historical background of economics (descending from political economy) have produced a way of viewing the world which is not value-neutral at all. The existence of heterodox economics (which should not be dismissed as "value" spins on "regular economics") would seem to show that the bare set of assumptions that orthodox economics makes are neither givens nor small in number. Marx, Sraffa, the neo-Ricardians and the Post-Keynesians questioned them. So I think that if science can be admitted to be ideological, we're in for a big treat when it comes to economics.