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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Skousen, Mark |
| Abstract: | * In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argues that individuals pursuing their own self-interest can promote the public good when channelled through his 'system of natural liberty.' * Smith's 'system of natural liberty' depends on three pillars - maximum individual liberty, tempered by justice (rule of law) and robust competition. * Competition acts as a moral regulator by disciplining greed and channelling self-interest into socially beneficial outcomes. * Smith strongly opposed mercantilism and governmentgranted monopolies, arguing that economic freedom and free trade generate greater prosperity. * Modern evidence, such as the Economic Freedom Index, supports Smith's prediction that societies with greater economic liberty achieve faster growth and higher living standards. * The Scottish philosopher's model achieves a hat trick: maximum liberty, individual improvement, and public benefit, all at the same time. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ieadps:338114 |
| By: | Vitale, Tommaso Prof (Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | This short article reconstructs the influence of Jürgen Habermas on urban studies, demonstrating how communicative action theory has shaped communicative planning theory, public sphere debates, and the legal philosophy of urban governance across five decades of European and North American scholarship. His influence has operated largely underground: through the communicative planning tradition of John Forester, Patsy Healey, and Judith Innes; through the vocabulary of deliberation and legitimacy that now pervades urban theory; and through the concept of the colonisation of the lifeworld, which provides researchers the analytical language to name what happens when markets and bureaucracies dismantle the communicative fabric of neighbourhoods. Against the prevailing reception — which treats Habermas as an abstract philosopher requiring translation into urban language — this article argues that he was, at his roots, an empirical and historical thinker of the city. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962) is a meticulous historical sociology of how European cities — their cafés, salons, reading clubs, and press — created the institutional conditions for democratic deliberation. The Theory of Communicative Action (1981–84) diagnoses the pathologies of urban modernity through the mechanism of colonisation of the lifeworld, tracing how instrumental rationality erodes the communicative infrastructure of urban life. Between Facts and Norms (1992) advances a constitutional theory of urban governance, specifying what conditions planning and land-use decisions must meet to achieve democratic legitimacy in late-modern democratic cities. The article concludes by examining Habermas's 2022 return to the public sphere in the age of digital platforms — a structural transformation of urban democracy as far-reaching as the one he analysed sixty years earlier — and argues that communicative action theory remains an indispensable analytical resource wherever deliberative urban governance and democratic legitimacy are at stake. |
| Date: | 2026–03–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:9b3tj_v1 |
| By: | Asam-van den Boogaart, Elisabeth |
| Abstract: | Im Rahmen eines Seminars zu Sozialgeschichte, Philosophie und Ethik setzten sich dual Studierende der Sozialen Arbeit und Kindheitspädagogik (IU Ulm, WS 24/25) mit berufsethischen Grundlagen auseinander. Ausgangspunkt waren beobachtete Unterschiede zwischen eigenen ethischen Orientierungen in der Praxis und den Schwerpunkten relevanter Positionspapiere wie den Reckahner Reflexionen und der Berliner Erklärung des DBSH. Um die berufsethischen Leitlinien erfahrener Fachkräfte zu erfassen, erhielten die Studierenden einen offenen Fragebogen zu berufsethischen Fragen und Handlungsroutinen, den sie in ihren Praxisstellen verteilten. Die Rücklaufquote umfasste 36 ausgefüllte Fragebögen aus kindheitspädagogischen und sozialarbeiterischen Arbeitsfeldern. Mithilfe thematischer Analyse wurden zentrale Werte, deren Umsetzung in Hand- lungspraxis sowie mögliche Diskrepanzen zwischen Leitbildern und gelebten Routinen identifiziert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen sowohl viele geteilte ethische Grundorientierungen (z. B. Respekt, Empathie, Selbstbestimmung) als auch Unterschiede der ethischen Orientierungen nach den Hand- lungsfeldern. Ergänzt wurden die Befragungsergebnisse im Seminar sowie ein abschließendes Open-Space-Format zur Förderung und konkreten Umsetzung berufsethischer Praxis. |
| Abstract: | As part of a seminar on social history, philosophy, and ethics, dual students of Social Work and Early Childhood Education (IU Ulm, WS 24/25) explored the foundations of professional ethics. The seminar began by examining observed differences between students' own ethical orientations in practice and the emphasis of relevant position papers, such as the RECKAHNER REFLECTIONS and the BERLIN DECLARATION of the DBSH. To capture the professional ethical frameworks of experienced practitioners, students distributed an open-ended questionnaire on ethical questions and routine practices at their field placements. A total of 36 completed questionnaires were returned from early childhood education and social work settings. Through thematic analysis, key values, their implementation in practice, and potential discrepancies be- tween guiding principles and everyday routines were identified. The findings indicate both widely shared ethical orientations (e.g., respect, empathy, self-determination) and differences in ethical priorities depending on the field of practice. The survey results were further discussed in the seminar and concluded with an Open Space session aimed at fostering professional ethical practice. |
| Keywords: | Berufsethik, Soziale Arbeit, Kindheitspädagogik, Werte und Normen, Thematische Analyse, Professional ethics, social work, early childhood education, values and behavioral norms, thematic analysis |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iubhso:338111 |
| By: | Patrick Cohendet; Patrick Llerena |
| Abstract: | This chapter aims to address the paradoxical portrayal of entrepreneurs in the Schumpeterian tradition. While entrepreneurs are portrayed as key players in economic development in Schumpeter's early works, they essentially disappear in neo-Schumpeterian literature, where their role is replaced by 'routines' as the primary operational component of organizations. This chapter re-establishes the entrepreneur as a producer of ideas, as well as an initiator and orchestrator of creative destruction, by reintegrating what we consider to be the primary “function of entrepreneurship”: generating and proposing new ideas and introducing novelty into the economic system. From this perspective, we argue that ideas, viewed primarily as processes, are the essence of the Schumpeterian entrepreneur’s role at the core of the 'entrepreneurial function', which orchestrates the ideation process by attracting, mobilizing and aligning allies around their vision. This entrepreneurial function takes different forms — from the 'heroic' entrepreneur of early capitalism, to a more 'depersonalized, routinised and automated' entity within large organizations, and, more recently, to an orchestrator within an innovative ecosystem. |
| Keywords: | Schumpeter, Creativity, Ideas |
| JEL: | B15 L26 L21 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2026-05 |
| By: | Gerhardt, Klaus-Uwe |
| Abstract: | Why did the abolition of wage supplements in 1834 lead to a durable reorganization of poor re-lief, even though subsequent research has questioned the empirical diagnosis on which the reform was based? Revisiting the Speenhamland allowance practices (1795–1834) and the New Poor Law, this paper argues that the significance of the reform lies less in correcting economic mal-function than in redefining the principles of entitlement. Drawing on revisionist economic history, the study shows that claims of systematic wage depres-sion, labor demoralization, and demographic distortion are not robustly supported by parish-level evidence. Allowances functioned primarily as locally administered forms of income smoothing under conditions of price volatility and labor-market strain. The reform of 1834 is interpreted as a reconfiguration of entitlement in which poverty was in-creasingly framed as a matter of conduct rather than subsistence risk. Through the codification of less eligibility and the workhouse test, access to relief became structured around deterrence and behavioral assessment. This institutional shift established a conditional entitlement logic whose structural features continue to shape modern welfare arrangements. |
| Date: | 2026–02–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:nyqs7_v1 |
| By: | Massimo Cervesato (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | Property rights are central to studies of natural resource governance, as they shape both our understanding of resource use and our capacity to act upon it. A key issue lies in the coexistence of characteristics typically associated with the public sphere (non-excludability of the resource) and others associated with the private sphere (subtractability of the resource). Ostrom thus suggests that common property consists of “essentially share contracts.” This, however, raises a fundamental question: what distinguishes such a regime from a mere aggregation of individual property rights? To address this, we return to the foundations of Ostrom’s framework, which draw on the institutionalist theory of John R. Commons. While much of the literature has focused on the notion of ‘bundles of rights, ’ we argue that further insights can be gained from Commons’s conception of legal relations. Combined with Ostrom’s emphasis on language, common property can be understood as an emergent phenomenon arising from the complex relations that constitute the commons, rather than a formal aggregation of distinct private properties. This perspective ultimately highlights the central role of informality in such regimes, explaining their difficult incorporation into modern legal systems |
| Keywords: | Common Property Rights; Commons; Ostrom (Elinor); Complexity;Institutionalist Theory |
| JEL: | D02 P48 B52 Q20 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:26005 |