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I lack of ethics t • • - I r 1 • ( • · Vf._ I - - \ - t' 1 By posing as an objective science, economics had seemed to remove the need for ethical decisions. The emphasis put on ethics by Aristotle and the Scholastics had been wiped away by the Enlightenment - but it turned out that the invisible hand was not a satisfactory substitute. Page 170
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linear science and improvement. Until the late 1960s, economics could be viewed in this way. The ideas of supply and demand, for example, were discussed by the ancients, elaborated on by the Scholastics, and led eventually to my idea of the invisible hand. This was formalized by Walras, with his models of equilibrium, and finally "proved" subject to artificial constraints by the Arrow-Debreu model. It was then expanded by the neoclassical synthesis to give a complete, self-consistent description of the economy - and even extended as a model of human behaviour to other areas of social science, such as criminology. Page 171

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I lack of ethics t • • -

I r 1 •

( • ·

Vf._

I

- -

\

-

t' 1

By posing as an objective science, economics had seemed to remove the need for ethical decisions.

The emphasis put on ethics by Aristotle and the Scholastics had been wiped away by the Enlightenment - but it turned out that the invisible hand was not a satisfactory substitute.

Page 170

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