ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: The notion of justice in the history of economic thought
Author: Melnik Denis
The aim of the paper proposed is to overview changes the concept of justice has undergone in the history of economic thought. While the definitions remain now basically the same as centuries ago, their real meanings has changed considerably. Section I of the paper deals with the period of Antiquity and Middle Ages. In this period the concept of justice had been developed, sophisticated and “justified” as an analytical tool for working out practical recommendations for economic policy. Section II deals with the place of justice in the framework of “the Laws of Nature”. Here the concept of justice became connected with establishment of the “right” order of things, specifically with the non-violation of property. Section III analyses the development of the concept in economics of the XIX cent. Different approaches to justice stemming from more distant, as well as from contemporary theories (specifically utilitilitarianism) became one of the sources for ideological clashes and differences in understanding “the nature and scope” of economics. Section IV deals with the period of dominance of neoclassical economics. According to some influential methodological approaches the problem of justice does not matter for economics as a “positive science”, while the others stress the significance of this notion.
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