功利主义经济伦理思想的局限性

功利主义经济伦理思想是合理性和局限性的统一体。在建设社会主义市场经济的过程中,我们必须正确地看待它,在肯定其合理性的同时,还必须看到其局限性。它主要表现在：将经济利益看成经济活动的唯一动力和价值目标;对经济伦理美德的忽视和贬抑;无法使个人经济利益和社会经济利益相统一。我们必须建立科学合理的功利主义经济伦理观。     

History,utility and liberty: John Stuart Mill's critical examination of Auguste Comte

This paper shows that Mill's assessment of Comte's work casts light on his own attitude towards the historicity of social phenomena and on the way he connects the notions of utility and liberty. It underlines the relative stability of Mill's views. While the tone of his remarks about Comte varied through time, their content remained basically unchanged. The paper untangles the complex web of the two thinkers’ intellectual relationship by gathering information scattered across many texts, assesses the effects of the Comtian influence on Mill's epistemology and shows how Mill's liberalism was partly built on his opposition to Comte's ideas.     

The future of the working classes: a comparison between J.S. Mill and A. Marshall

Abstract

Both J. S. Mill and A. Marshall had a lifelong interest in the living conditions of the working classes and theorized the possibility of a new age, characterized by a widespread mental and moral cultivation. This paper compares the precise arguments put forward by them in the period ranging from Mill's to Marshall's Principles, against the background of the evidence of social and human progress at their times. It is argued that, at different stages and with different specific arguments, their predictions relied on self-reinforcing mechanisms, in which a better life was the cause, no less than the effect, of progress. In order to make similarities and differences more transparent from a logical point of view, two simple mathematical formulations are proposed.     

Selfishness, cooperation, the evolutionary point of view and its implications for economics

The assumed selfishness of market actors could be considered in the context of two perspectives: macroeconomic and microeconomic. The first concerns the market mechanism as the most effective from the social well-being or the wealth of a nation points of view. The latter is based on the premises of the nature of human beings. I have distinguished between two possible ways of understanding selfish forms of behaviour in the market: as rational economic behaviour i.e. the most effective from the gains and losses point of view (i.e. public interests in the works of A. Smith) or as selfish from the psychological point of view (this is mostly presented by J. S. Mill's theory). The first approach seems to be concerned with the creation of the most effective market mechanism from the State's point of view. In the context of historical processes over 400 years, cultural evolution “has been promoting” selfish behaviour; for example, it was widely presented in T. Hobbes' works and then for over 200 years, the theory of A. Smith has been supporting and moulding the institutional context of market and social behaviour. Thus, positive economics describes the market created by the ideas of a neo-classical paradigm, which is based on the normative premises of A. Smith and J. S. Mill. Moreover, the virtual market behaviour described by “effects” (f. e. Veblen's effect) and failures seems to be a manifestation of a discrepancy between market reality and the classical assumptions.The social evolution of human beings has been advantageous to the human species. Moreover, from the social point of view, pro-social behaviour is “natural” as well as desirable and it has been preferred by the cultural evolution. Competitiveness assumes that somebody has to lose, because someone gains. Cooperation looks for gains for all the players. The choice is political, and not imposed by selfishness.     

Trustworthiness as a Moral Determinant of Economic Activity: Lessons from the Classics

This paper reviews the way that social norms and ethical values in general, and trustworthiness in particular, is perceived to affect the behavior of economic agents in view of the work of Adam Smith, Nassau William Senior and John Stuart Mill. Classical Political economists held that economic actions are context-dependent and thus constantly under the influence of social norms and values. It is further suggested here that Classical Economists had established that trustworthiness acts as a general ethical precondition for the efficient behaviour of the markets and an important asset of the national social capital.     

Contribution of international ecotourism to comprehensive economic development and convergence in the Central American and Caribbean region

Drawing on the positive experience from Costa Rica, the study examines whether international ecotourism makes a significant contribution to comprehensive economic development for the Central American and Caribbean region and contributes to comprehensive economic convergence. Following a standard empirical growth model, a dynamic panel regression model is estimated using time-series data from 1995 until 2012 for a cross section of seven countries. The interaction of international tourism and various established sustainability indicators is employed allowing ecotourism to be consistently quantified across countries, while numerous country-specific structural characteristics are controlled for. The estimation results show that international ecotourism has a statistically significant positive effect on both traditional economic development (real GDP per capita) and comprehensive economic development (adjusted net savings; ANS per capita), which is a measure of a society’s potential future well-being, thus providing evidence in support of the tourism-led growth hypothesis and pointing towards an important role for ecotourism in driving comprehensive economic convergence.     

河北农业科技园区建设现状与可持续发展研究

河北农业科技园发展到今天,已经颇具规模。然而,管理运行机制中出现的一些问题成为河北农业科技园发展的瓶颈。本文通过分析河北农业科技园管理运行机制中存在的问题,提出必须要采取现代化的经营管理措施,推追其可持续性发展。     

Heterogenesis of ends: Herbert Spencer and the Italian economists

The influence of Spencer's ideas is now generating a good deal of analysis. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of Spencer's work on economic thought. It also analyses the way in which this work was interpreted by the Italian economists. In particular, it investigates the influence of Spencer's theory of evolution on the thought of Pantaleoni (1857–1924) and Nitti (1868–1953). These two representative Italian scholars were on opposite sides for their economic methodology and the issue of government intervention in the economy. The paper clarifies whether their two divergent visions on social change could both be in accordance with Spencer ideas.     

美国奶牛业的发展经验及其启示

奶牛饲养业是现代国家农业的核心行业。大部分发达国家乳业产值一般都占畜牧业总产值的1/3以上,所以,如何又好又快地发展我国奶牛业对于我国经济发展有着重要意义。借鉴美国奶牛业发展的成功经验,利用我国已经具备的加速奶牛业发展的条件,提出一些能促进我国奶牛业快速发展的建议。