Universal Economics Assessing the Achievements of the Economic Approach

At the end of the 50s economics had begun its "imperialist" phase, spreading the economists' theory of behavior to the entire domain of the social sciences (see, e.g., the predecessor to this volume: Radnitzky, G. and Bernholz, P. (eds.). Economic Imperialism. Paragon House 1987, which presents samples). Political economy, the new institutional economics and constitutional economics broadened attention to an open-ended array of social and political problems. The Economic Approach offers a coherent analytic framework to express the unity underlying the structure of problems appearing over the whole of man's experience and, hence, it opens an opportunity for a unified approach. With respect to the human realm it is, in Dr. Radnitzky's view, "Basically an invitation to straight thinking". What gives economics this "imperialist" power is the fact that its key concepts such as scarcity, competition, opportunities, costs, are applicable to all human phenomena and in fact to all of life. In this sense we may speak,of "Universal Economics". The contributions to the volume examine what has so far been achieved by applying the Economic Approach outside the traditional field of economics. Some of these include applying it in the life sciences (Michael T. Ghiselin), in the social sciences (James S. Coleman), in the analysis of politics (Peter C. Ordeshook and Vincent Ostrom), by applying it to law (Alan Schwartz), to history (Roger Meiners and Stanley L. Engerman), in the analysis of conflict (Gordon Tullock, Jack Hirshleifer and Anthony de Jasay) and to international relations (Peter Bernholz). Each of the major papers is followed by a commentary from one or two renowned scientists and scholars.Radnitzky, Gerard is the author of 'Universal Economics Assessing the Achievements of the Economic Approach', published 1992 under ISBN 9780892261024 and ISBN 0892261021.