Personalist Economics

Moral Convictions, Economic Realities, And Social Action

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9256319
AutoresEdward J O'Boyle, Edward J O’Boyle (autor de correspondencia)
Año2000
Volumen58
Número4
Páginas539-552
Fecha de publicación2000-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaReview of Social Economy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0034-6764 • E-ISSN: 1470-1162
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00346760050204364
OpenAlexW2144321725
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12
Referencias citadas6

We will know more later--Anonymous Personalist Economics: Moral Convictions, Economic Realities, and Social Action evolved over my entire lifetime originating with my parents' teaching and modeling of certain fundamental moral convictions well before the start of my formal schooling. In that sense Personalist Economics is akin to a journal in which I have recorded what I have seen on my journey as a student through the discipline of economics and as a professional through the practical, everyday affairs of the economic order. It was only most recently, however, that I consciously connected my interest in human material need to my parents' own origins in the poorest part of Ireland--County Mayo. There are two major types of problems with such a journal. First, my field of vision does not encompass the entire discipline. As with virtually every other graduate student of economics, my preparation was specialised wherein I opted for a primary concentration in labor economics: history of the labor movement, theory of wages, employment security, and labor force developments. Second, my understanding of what I have seen is flawed by my own human frailty. My vision, in other words, is far short of 20-20, and Personalist Economics suffers from my own near-sightedness. Clearly, the book would have been much improved had it been written by someone with a better-trained eye and with greater peripheral vision. For that reason, Personalist Economics is dedicated to William R. Waters and Joseph M. Becker, S J. because as their student I have become a great admirer of their superior vision in these matters. The three contributors selected to comment on Personalist Economics for this review symposium--Peter Danner, Maureen Maloney, and Daniel Finn--bring their own personal convictions, formal schooling and preparation, professional experience, and vision to the task. Since each one is unique and capable, what they offer is highly personalised and valuable. For that reason, I would be poorly advised to attempt a direct reply to their remarks. It is better, I think, to let their remarks stand on their own and to try to frame my own in terms of what I see as the strengths and weaknesses of Personalist Economics in the hope and expectation that out of this symposium will emerge a better understanding of what personalist economics [1] is, a wider interest in articulating how it conforms to and departs from contemporary mainstream economics, and why it offers promise for a clearer vision of economic affairs and a stronger and longer-lasting foundation for economic policy. In effect what I am doing here is amending my journal based on more recently undertaken journeys through economics and economic affairs. These amendments, for sure, are not the final revisions I will make to Personalist Economics. My remarks below conform to the three-part organisation of Personalist Economics: premises, description of economic affairs, and economic policy. PREMISES The first and most important strength of Personalist Economics is that it rests upon and offers a different ideological foundation for doing economics and understanding economic affairs. It suggests re-thinking our premises, re-examining our description of economic, and re-assessing our policy recommendations by substituting personalism for both the individualism of mainstream economics and the collectivism of its principal alternative. It argues that how we understand and describe economic affairs and where we end up in terms of economic policy depend on where we begin in terms of our premises. Taken seriously by our colleagues in economics, whether orthodox or heterodox, Personalist Economics calls for much greater openness and critical scrutiny of the premises we use routinely but discuss only occasionally. In Becker's well-chosen words ...it is precisely at this point...that the rabbit gets into the hat (Becker 1961:10). In all honesty, I did not have Personalist Economics in mind when I set out on my journey

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