Η οικονομική λογική της συλλογικής δράσης. Μετα-ηθικά επιχειρήματα σε έναν μη ηθικό κόσμο

Abstract

The article offers a critical overview of some key issues in the pubiic/rational choice literature, especially those already offered in translation to the Greek public. Among the problems explored in the article (including Bergson - Sa- muelson social welfare functions, the Arrow and Sen impossibility theorems and Buchanan - Tullock’s constitutional logic) of particular importance is the Olsonian collective action theorem. Drawing upon Olson's own “logic” the article argues that the way Olson constructs his methodological categories is inconsistent with the very logical presuppositions that he has set himself.
The analysis is carried through into a detailed discussion of the way Olson’s catégorial constraction violates some substantially different criteria, existing between market and nonmarket behavior, and between collective and individual rationality. The conclusion is that economic categories (cost- benefit analysis, price theory) and other law-like methodological weapons of economic analysis are not adequate to deal with real-world forms of the collective and mass political action.

According to the author, although collective phenomena cannot be reduced to self-interest economic motivation, nevertheless the political and moral relevance of rational choice theories entering the public space cannot be overlooked. The author asks “What is the political relevance of the economic theory of politics in a world where morality has ceased to function as a ‘vinculum societatis’, at least in the way it did it in the past?” He concludes by asserting that extreme economic rationalism has demoralizing effects in the field of politics.