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5 - To Which Kind of Welfare Did Léon Walras Refer?

The Theorems and the State*

from Part I - Plurality of Welfare in the Making of Welfare Economics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2021

By
Richard Arena
Edited by
Roger E. Backhouse ,
Antoinette Baujard  and
Tamotsu Nishizawa
Roger E. Backhouse
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham and Erasmus University Rotterdam
Antoinette Baujard
Affiliation:
Université de Lyon et Université Jean Monnet à Saint-Étienne
Tamotsu Nishizawa
Affiliation:
Teikyo University Japan
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Summary

Léon Walras is often assumed, at least implicitly, to be a welfarist on the grounds that his work is generally considered to be the origin of the first social welfare theorems and therefore a forerunner of Pareto optimality. This chapter argues that such a view contradicts the basic foundations of Walras’s economic and social philosophy and especially his conceptions of society and of individuals. If we take seriously Walras’s distinction between “general social conditions” (“conditions sociales générales”) and “specific personal positions” (“positions personnelles particulières”), we can develop an alternative interpretation of his views on welfare, which leads in turn to a different, non-welfarist, conception of the Walrasian view of the state.

Keywords

general equilibriumsocial satisfactionfree competitioncommutative justicedistributive justiceprivate interestpublic interestsocial aggregationsocietywelfarerationalismthe statewelfare state
Type
Chapter
Information
Welfare Theory, Public Action, and Ethical Values
Revisiting the History of Welfare Economics
 , pp. 118 - 134
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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