The articulation efficiency / justice in some economic theories of the twentieth century Between positive economy and normative economy

This article examines the cleavage between efficiency/justice in order to attempt to link it with the distinction between positive and normative economics as defined by J. N. Keynes : positive economics describes what is, whereas normative economics deals with what should be (J. N. Keynes, 1963, p. 34). The article shows that, in the neoclassical theory of general equilibrium, the opposition between positive economics and normative economics overlaps with that between efficiency and justice: neoclassical efficiency is a criterion built on the rejection of value judgements and ethics in an economy that calls itself positive; the neoclassical theory of justice belongs to welfare economics, which is explicitly normative (section I). In heterodox approaches (among which those of Keynes, Marglin and North are treated in greater detail) questions of efficiency are mixed with those of power and justice, just as considerations of what is are mixed with those on what should be (section II). The neoclassical attempt to found an approach to efficiency leaving aside normative considerations can thus be opposed to the tradition that prevails in the various other theories enlisted here, in which the articulation efficiency/justice is treated in a different way each time, but never in a watertight way (transl. J. Dudley).