Economic Justice and Economic Theory: Limiting the Reach of Neoclassical Ideology

Abstract

The concept of economic justice finds no robust expression in the law of the United States. Although the term “justice” is replete with ambiguity, it nonetheless evokes relatively familiar notions of equity and fairness in the administration and application of law. However, the term “economic justice” is rarely discussed in judicial decisions or in scholarly analysis and commentary. This essay argues that today’s mainstream economic theory, the neoclassical paradigm, interacts with legal culture to obviate considerations of economic justice. By the law’s reliance on a methodology that is blind to considerations of group status and group processes, and by its adoption of values that marginalize conventional notions of equity and fairness in the economic arena, supplanting them with the values of efficiency and self-interest, the law becomes oblivious to its role in achieving and maintaining the unjust distribution of assets, resources, and opportunities countenanced by the neoclassical paradigm. By illustrating the ways in which the neoclassical economic paradigm both delegitimizes the search for economic justice and promotes economic inequality, the essay argues that critical economic scholars must actively demonstrates the role of neoclassical economic ideology in the preservation of economic inequality and economic subordination.

Keywords: economic justice, neoclassical economic theory, ideology, neoclassical paradigm, discrimination, efficiency, rationality, racism