The role of first principles in economics is examined through the lens of dominant methodological approaches of the classical and neoclassical periods. First principles are most clearly displayed in pure deductive systems. The tension between first principles as the basis for deductivist...

Wie selbstverständlich geht die heutige ökonomische Standardlehre davon aus, dass sie Studierenden eine feste und unveränderliche Sicht auf die Welt vermitteln kann. Doch woher kommt diese Annahme? Walter Lippmann, einer der Begründer des Neoliberalismus, gibt hierauf einen ersten Hinweis:...

Deirdre McCloskey's work on bourgeois virtues is pathbreaking, but it has relatively little to say about working class virtues. The present paper turns to John Stuart Mill (a McCloskey favorite) for his take on the "future of the laboring classes" (Mill [1848] 1965, 758 – 796). If modern...

It is our natural inclination to find stable patterns and meaning in the chaotic world around us. This assists in our efforts to understand the past and forecast the future. The starting point of this essay is the phrase "dismal science" which is an often used 'epitheton ornans' of economics....

Current literature on John Stuart Mill's writings about Asia has mainly focused on his influence in India because of Mill's 35-year career in the East India Company. Scholars in both China and the West have not paid attention to Mill's views on China. This paper delves into Mill's notion of...

Die real existierende Marktwirtschaft unterliegt einem ökonomischen Wachstumszwang, der Umweltpolitik konterkariert. Eine bessere Wirtschaftsordnung, die in erster Linie leistungslose Einkommen verhindern muss, kann ihn überwinden und Ökonomie, Ökologie sowie soziale Gerechtigkeit in...

This paper investigates the nature of paths in the standard neoclassical aggregative model of economic growth that are maximal according to the Suppes-Sen grading principle. This is accomplished by relating such paths to paths which are utilitarian maximal when an increasing (but not necessarily...