The Poverty of Economics The Philosophical Anatomy of an Empty Rationality

This book improves the alignment of economics with the idea of justice, the first virtue of any social institution, according to Rawls. To this aim, it provides the analytical framework necessary to ensure a just economy. While today’s notion of economics favours the economics of extortion, this book proposes a model that transcends Lionel Robbins’ canonical relationship between ends and means, as it proposes a broader notion of rationality incorporating the range of human attributes. In contrast to Robbins' economic rationality, economic choices must be based on adequate and good reasons, as Rescher claims, because both the means and the ends require rational deliberation. As a result, the book challenges Robbins’ hope of turning general concepts like scarcity, costs, etc. into universal economic principles guiding human behavior in a vacuum. It disputes the idea that, through the application of the abstract formulation of economic statements unconnected to reality, economics can be rationalized in a morally neutral space, based on empty rationality. By contrasting the three rival versions of economics —formalism (axiomatic), empiricism (technocratic-consequential), and institutionalism (axio-ideological)— the book shows that it is not possible to switch between them as they refer to segmented mental universes of abstraction.

PART ONE ECONOMICS METHOD AND RATIONALITY.- CHAPTER 1 WHAT DO WE MEAN BY ECONOMICS TODAY.- CHAPTER II THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN ECONOMICS.- CHAPTER III RATIONALITY IN ECONOMICS.- PART TWO ECONOMICS AND JUSTICE THE LONG JOURNEY.- CHAPTER IV MEANINGS OF JUSTICE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF ECONOMICS.- CHAPTER V MEANINGS OF JUSTICE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

Manuel Sanchis i Marco is the Senior Lecturer (Tenured) of Applied Economics, at the University of Valencia, and Ph.D. in Economics Cum Laude and Prize to the Best Ph.D. by the University of Valencia. Certificate of Advanced European Studies, College of Europe. BA degree in Philosophy, Master’s degree in Ethics and Democracy, Ph.D. in Philosophy Cum Laude, and International Doctorate at the University of Valencia and the University Jaime I of Castellón, within the joint Programme of Doctorate in Ethics and Democracy. Visiting Researcher at the London School of Economics. Adjunct Professor in the Master in European Studies of the Universiteit Antwerpen. Guest Scholar at The Brookings Institution. External Guest Speaker in the Master in European Public Affairs of the Maastricht University and the European Institute of Public Administration. Economist at the European Commission in the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, and in the Directorate-General for Employment and Social Affairs. EAG member for Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities of the 7th Framework Program of the European Union. Latests books are Miseria de la economía. Anatomía filosófica de una racionalidad vacía (Ediciones Trea, 2023); El fracaso de las élites. Lecciones y escarmientos de la Gran Crisis (Pasado & Presente, 2014); The Economics of the Monetary Union and the Eurozone Crisis (Springer, 2013); and, Falacias, Dilemas y Paradojas. La Economía de España: 1980-2010 (PUV, 2011). Writes regularly in professional reviews and El País, Expansión, Cinco Días, and is requested for interviews on Spanish and foreign radios and TVs.