Values – limits of economic rationality and imperialism of culture

In European politics, the issue of neo-liberalism is both dominant and contested. This political position has a foundation in an influential economic theory. This economic variant of a universal theory of human behaviour is known as ‘economic imperialism’. It is very influential in the other social sciences as well. The ‘rational-choice-model’ (RCM) is frequently employed to explain social phenomena. The RCM, formally speaking, is the approach of neo-classical economic theory. By scrutinising some presuppositions of economic imperialism, it becomes clear, however, that this approach cannot offer a universal theory of human behaviour. These considerations are not a criticism of economic rationality as such but of a specific interpretation of this rationality, namely that of economic imperialism. Although basic ideas of the RCM are criticised within the discourse of economics itself, such criticism has a primarily empirical nature. By contrast, this article develops a reflexive argument that concerns the framework of the RCM itself. RCM starts from assumptions that it does not justify, or is even unable to justify. Two of these assumptions are discussed in-depth: the givenness of preferences and the quantifiability of utility. It turns out that preferences of rational beings are not merely given but continuously evaluated. Moreover, preferences qua goals of action have a non-quantitative character: they are constituted by values. Values make up the foundation of (quantifiable) goods or preferences in the economic sense.