Social Economics: A Socialist Perspective

Social economics, if it is anything, must be an approach to economic theory that recognizes and places importance on the sociality of all human economic activities and simultaneously explains and evaluates the meaning and significance of this sociality. Classical liberalism, including both classical economics and neoclassical economics, has given little or no importance to this sociality. The word “socialism” originated in England in the 1820s. It was coined to differentiate a particular view —the socialist view—of capitalism from the asocial, individualistic view of classical liberalism. Socialist economic theory can therefore lay claim to being one of the oldest and richest traditions within the history of social economics. In the following article I shall briefly sketch the outlines of one socialist perspective on social economics. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to say that there are differences among socialist economists on many of the issues I shall discuss.