A historical introduction to normative economics

The central way in which people judge the economy is process liberalism, whose rational form, however, implies specific redistributions and roles for the public sector. Other principles also belong to procedural justice, and others refer to happiness. Among the latter, the utilitarian ethos and form have a limited scope of relevance. This has led to the consideration of more general social maximands. However, seeing a priori the general social optimum as a maximum imposes non-needed requirements, sometimes opposes rationality and equity, and always demands justification. In particular, this maximizing form cannot be justified as representing an individual's judgment. But, at any rate, the general optimum is defined otherwise.