Can Economic Systems be Chosen? History, Values and Human Nature

Neither Marxists and Hegelians nor most supporters of market economies believe that we can really choose an economic system. Historical laws and economic realities undermine our attempts. Explores the problem of predicting any human future and examines background views of human nature which influenced classical economics. Revives Malebranche′s view that man is necessarily an ordering creature. Man must make decisions, but tends towards a natural good which would be instantiated in a social system which reconciled self‐interest and the public interest so that everyone′s rational needs and reasonable desires were given proper weight. In these terms there are choices we can make, especially about how property is to be used and shared.