Economic science, it must be allowed, came into this world as a Theory of Moral Sentiments. Our argument that it should mature into something else turns on twin observations: 1) there never exists more than one economic system to be described, and 2) our moral sentiments tend to be varied, contradictory, and plural.

SFEcon perceives the objects of our study together with their motives in one and the same highly abstracted view of material affairs. We presume that all sectors are motivated by the single aim of efficiency; and, conversely, that economic efficiency only emerges as the essence of materialism when considering the motives of highly aggregated economic actors.

Our view has been observed to be inhumane, and rightly so because it is operative for the social orders of purely instinctive, amoral beings such as bees, ants, and termites. Our unabashed contention is that economic theory should commence with an explanation of the order achieved by these insects before attempting the advance to an understanding of our own material circumstances.

This premise is opposed by economic orthodoxy, which begins with some sort of morally imperative construction of interpersonal affairs, and then wills these findings to be causal in material affairs when viewed at any level of abstraction — this universality being a necessary aspect of the metaphysical Truth that the orthodox personality positively must possess. As was the case for Ricardo, Marx, and Keynes, SFEcon achieves reprehensibility by failing to engage, let alone ratify, any behaviors essential to orthodoxy’s varied and contradictory foundational verities.

We nonetheless persist in our amoral view because it allows us to sort orthodoxy’s contradictions in an informative way. Our grid is established by placement of Catholicism’s scattered appreciation for, and ultimate rejection of, the socialist impulse. The famous motto From each as he is able, to each as he needs is anything but pernicious in itself: it merely describes the healthy family wherein abilities and needs are known intimately. Traditional faiths will therefore naturally uphold this doctrine, as well as register an understandable longing that it apply to all human relations. It is then also natural that some priests would strive to have their enthusiasm for familial harmony embraced by plenary police powers; and that the presumably greater wisdom of the Curia would occasionally be required for their restraint.

The harm done in the name of Karl Marx might be understood as a hoisting-up familial intimacy to the authority of states, which cannot possibly appreciate the needs and abilities of all the individuals they represent. A similar error is made by enthusiasts for propositional nations: the well-instantiated possibilities for individual excellence, as well as cordial and even intimate relations among some individuals of disparate cultures, must be made actual for all individuals irrespective of their cultural backgrounds.

In their reactions against Marx, Austrian economists and Objectivist acolytes invert Marx’ error. Proceeding from the predatory materialism and avarice that are proper and necessary to valuation in a healthy macro economy, these evangelical rationalists pursue their logical imperative to impossible ends. They require that individuals must be (irrespective of the evidence) and indeed should be (irrespective of ordinary civility) interacting for the sake of personal advantage.

Their imperative of logical rectitude is then achieved by theoretically isolating the individual from all those troubling but inescapable social interrelations that require cultivation. And, having left the literal miracle of the market at the center of their theory, their priest/ventriloquists can easily induce the stone idols of their faith to articulate whatever might be proper to their fancy.