Showing papers on "Great Rationality Debate published in 1973"

Rationality and Irrationality in Economics

Abstract: Despite Maurice Godelier's desire for philosophical significance, this collection of his essays stays for all practical purposes on the terrain of the social sciences, as conventionally defined, in particular of economics. The question which forms the theme connecting all these pieces—“What is the rationality of the economic systems that appear and disappear throughout history…, their hidden logic and the underlying necessity for them to exist, or to have existed?” (vii)—brings with it a second basic question, what Godelier calls that of the “rationality of economics,” i.e., the scientific status of economic theory. A theory capable of assessing relative rationalities must both encompass several economic systems and differentiate between them.