Publisher's Synopsis
Recent years have seen growing disquiet being expressed over some of the fundamental building-blocks of modern mainstream, ?neo-classical?, economics. Particular concern has been expressed over the axiom that, in his economic dealings, man is immutably self-interested. This book provides a comprehensive and far-reaching critique of the implications of this axiom, from the perspective of ?communitarian ethics? and its application to the study of a wide range of economic issues. It is argued that communitarian ethics is by no means a new scheme but is instead readily ?distilled? from many great religions and philosophies; turning its back on this extraordinarily precious ?wisdom of the ages?, economics has, we argue, significantly weakened itself. The book does not, however, confine itself solely to a methodological critique: it shows how its proposed alternative approach can provide a significantly better understanding of an entire array of concrete economic issues and lead to much sounder policy prescriptions in regard to these issues. The actual postwar experience of countries, particularly Japan and the United States, is liberally drawn upon to exemplify the points discussed. In sum, the book provides an alternative approach to economics that is invigorating, logically complete, and extremely valuable in helping us to understand and solve the most pressing economic problems of our age.
