WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED ECONOMIC RATIONALISM

Anyone well informed on current debate in Australian politics would have heard the term 'economic rationalism'. It is used frequently in conjunction with such policies as closing down rail services, applying user-pays principles, introducing reforms to higher education, attempting to privatise government-owned assets, and so on. For a long time the term economic rationalism was used on the assumption that we all knew what it meant and how it worked. However, until recently, little writing had been devoted to its underlying assumptions or its implications for wider social and political questions. The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how economic rationalism has attempted to transcend the moral or ethical issues that are an inherent part of the social sciences and humanities. Economic rationalism is not just about economics; its precepts, whilst relying on the supposed neutrality of economics, go far beyond the economic into the realm of the social, the political, and the philosophical.