Ethics, Economics and Freedom: The Failure of Consequentialist Social Welfare Theory

Nobel laureate James Buchanan once asked, "What should economists do?". The author answers by examining the theoretical, empirical and ethical problems which inhere in consequence-based, procedurally-detached social welfare theory (SWT). The fundamental constructs of SWT are found to be indeterminate. Moreover, SWT is irreconcilable with the moral force of rights and non-accomodative of alternative understandings of justice. Finally, the unintended consequences of application of the efficiency standard include the growth of government, the rationalization of "efficiency-enhancing" corruption, and a truncated view of "transition" and other socio-economic-legal-political-cultural problems. The author argues, therefore, for a contractarian alternative which emphasizes the importance of endogenously generated ethical constraints, assigns lexical priority to rights and forces attention upon constitutional questions. While SWT focuses on outcomes and seeks to "get the prices right", the alternative seeks to "get the institutions right". Given ethical constraints, rights protection, and just "rules of the game", individuals are free to pursue their ends, whatever those ends may be.