Tendencje rozwojowe teorii ekonomii dobrobytu
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Date
1972
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WydziaĆ Prawa i Administracji UAM
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Developmental Tendencies of the Welfare Economic Theory
Abstract
The representatives of the so called "new" welfare economics made an attempt
to find a criterion for estimating economic welfare that would make possible to
avoid controversial problems of interpersonal comparisons of utility. They tried to
approach economic welfare in the categories of a total amount of utility for individuals
(N. Kaldor, M. W. Reder, J. R. Hicks, T. Scitowsky).
The conception of new welfare economics was criticised. The principle of compensation
which is a questionable attempt of avoiding the problem of interpersonal
comparisons of loss and profit was found dispensable in the analysis of economic
welfare (J. M. D. Little). On the other hand standards of value, which are the
basis of forming economic optimum and depend on a preference scale fixed by the
state, give no guaranty of the most proper choice and do not reflect individual preferences
fully (R. J. Arrow). The new welfare economics was also blamed for restricting
the problems to static conditions only (J. de V. Graaff).
Difficulties in finding the optimum and scepticism about the conception of new
welfare economics made some economists look for a mechanism securing accomplishment
of economic welfare in the conditions of partly socialized means of production
and controlled economy. One of them is A. Lemer, whose program is reformatic
and restricts the assumptions of economic welfare to institutional changes
within the scape of capitalistic production relations.
O. Lange cosiders the possible division of the available resources and their
optimum utilization in the socialist economy that takes advantage of autonomous
top-level decisions of nation-wide significance as well as the market mechanism.
O. Lange's skeleton mechanism of social economy operation, which permits of the
application of the justified ideals of the welfare economics, was criticised by the
liberals (F. Hayek, L. Robbins, W. Beveridge, D. Wright and others). They objected
to the alleged underutilization of market mechanism in Lange's model, to arbitrarily
by the central government's organ determined purposes and to administratively
irrational pursuit of socio-economic goals.
The conception of a welfare state was created in the Western countries in the
years 1950 s. It reflected the tendency of a burgeois state to apply the ideals of
welfare economics within the scope of the socio-economic and social policy of the
Keynesists. The program with help of an increased state intervention was tending
to replace the previous state philantropy by activities striving to form socio-economic
and social processes and to strengthen the role of the parliament and public
control of economic activities of the monopolies in particular. The interrelation of
the state and monopolies and the restricted role of the parliament caused a confinement
of the welfare state program to some concessions for the benefit of the working
peoples. The confinements are due to the prevailing production relations and
not, as the burgeois economists say, to the growing expenses on the revolution in
science and technics and to thus limited financial means of the state.
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Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny 34, 1972, z. 3, s. 69-82