| Abstract: | The sociologist R. Dahrendorf has recently suggested that thereis no and there ought to be no convergence of economic policiestowards some common ideal model. On the contrary, he statesthat ‘diversity is ...] at the very heart of a worldthat has abandoned the need for closed, encompassing systems’.It is shown in this paper that the Dahrendorf hypothesis isdifficult to reconcile with orthodox economic approaches toeconomic policy-making. A perspective on policy-making thatintroduces either fundamental uncertainty or endogenous policypreferences or both is, however, shown to be consistent withthe Dahrendorf hypothesis. |
