The invisible hand and the common good

Abstract

Nineteen papers, derived from the Ninth International Conference on Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy held at the Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, in June 2002, discuss the problem of the invisible hand and the common good. Papers consider public interest and self-interest in the market and the democratic process; the invisible hand and the thinness of the contemporary notion of the common good; hiring invisible hands for public works; a market failures approach to business ethics; abstractions and conceptual automata in economics and noneconomics; the inherent rights of for-profit corporations; degrees of property; understanding market theology; general equilibrium theory as normative ideal social order; the efficiency of the nonprofit enterprise; transformational economics and the public good; whether altruistic motivations provide a serious anomaly for theoretical explanation and whether the distribution of goods within the competitive economy represented by neoclassical theory can satisfy defensible standards of moral justice; the person, the market, and the community; social trust, modern economies, and the example of shopping; a reconciliation of the liberal and communitarian debate in light of the Methodenstreit, a controversy on methods between theoretical and historical economists at the end of the nineteenth century in Austria and Germany; voluntary simplicity, psychological implications, and societal consequences; Russia's experiment with the invisible hand; fostering the common good in developing countries and the respective responsibilities of states and international business; and globalization and the redefinition of democratic governance. Hodgson is Professor of Philosophy at Trent University. Name index.