On the Anthropological Study of Economies: A Comment

This paper deals with the moral justification behind policy positions. Squeezed between the inevitability of having a welfare ideology and the mantra of value-neutrality (depoliticization), neoclassical policy economists tend to disguise their normative positions on policy matters as common sense. This attitude is particularly pronounced in what I will call "the rhetoric of worthiness," whereby the neoclassical approach justifies its advocacy that certain people should not be helped. This normative position is disguised by a vocabulary (e.g., moral hazard) claimed to be politically neutral. The present paper criticizes this neoclassical mode of policy evaluation in favor of a more socially conscious and innovative policy approach.