Ethics out of Economics: The Futile Attempt of Rendering Economics a Neutral Science

Over the last century, and several times until recently, mainstream economics has been criticized from different viewpoints. Most of the critiques highlighted the weakness of its methodological and logical structure, not to mention its inadequate capacity of tackling with the new problems posed by globalization. However, mainstream economics has always shown itself strong enough as to stand up victoriously most of the times, notwithstanding those critiques, which quite often turned out to be even devastating from the logical point of view. The object of my report will be mainly focused on highlighting one of the most important reason for which mainstream economics should be considered altogether inadequate for tackling with many problems of the real world. And that reason essentially lies in the very fact that mainstream economics has since long put any ethical aspect completely outside its basic framework. One the most important consequences of that operation has been that of rendering economic theory perilously free of any value-judgment and therefore uncontaminated by any possible social and political change in society, even by the most significant ones. The report will then briefly reconstruct the most significant steps through which that process was accomplished, by bringing about, at the same time, the severe drawbacks of that futile attempt of rendering economics neutral in its analysis and its policy prescriptions.