Rationality, Allocation, and Reproduction

This monograph is a major critical assessment of the foundations of microeconomic theory, especially rationality, but also welfare resource allocation, and capital reproduction. It examines the various concepts of rationality that have been constructed by twentieth-century economists and the analysis of the allocation of resources among rational agents. Walsh explores the philosophical implications of the replacement of our everyday idea of what is good by these theoretical concepts. He argues that the current intellectual climate, which has moved away from formalism, necessitates the re-examination of the concepts of rationality that scholars and policy-makers, many of whom were not economists, were ready to adopt directly or indirectly from economic theory in the recent past.