Competing Visions in Economics as a Social Science: A Primer

The following was posted here - I had originally written it for students in one of my intermediate courses:

Economics (indeed every discipline of the social sciences) has never been, and never will be, value-free. Social scientists have always relied, and will continue to rely, on sets of elaborate positions, perceptions, and views about the ultimate nature of reality; essentially, it is the reliance on preconceived notions of how the world works, and how it should work, when analyzing manifest phenomena. Aspects of conscientiousness precede investigation and thus one cannot separate the knowing mind from the object inquiry. What constitutes a fact perceives the observation and hence the conception of what is determined as socially significant; the mind is active in constructing and determining the lens through which observation deciphers what of social phenomena is worthy of factuality.

All theorizing is based on first order principles (Lawson, 1989). Thus, what underlie all theories of human behavior are general apperceptions and ideological convictions of the relationship between the individual and society. They are epistemological foundations-what Joseph Schumpeter labeled as 'preanalytical visions'-which dictate modes of examination and inquisition. Hence, different pre-analytical visions predispose the focusing on different social and economic problems and lead to entirely different attitudes towards social settings and human actions within those settings. Preanalytical visions have pertinent implications for normative assessments of the human condition.

The neoclassical, or mainstream, if you will, preanalytical conception of the human being is that of the single-minded seeker of maximum utility (pleasure with respect to cost-benefit analysis and bounded rationality). This perspective perceives that the nature of individual preference orderings, with respect to consumption, is taken as given (more like taken for granted) and primary, without regard to agency and the social institutions and processes within which likes and dislikes are formed. The surrounding within which individual actions take place is conceived as an endless array of opportunity costs for the attainment of constrained optimization.

Categorical positions such as class, gender, and race are systematically negated in favor of centering attention on the (rather fictitious) assumption that society is based upon isolated exchangers/producers maximizing pleasure with initial endowments given by the Malthusian notion of the natural lottery of life. The only way in which human sociality appears is in individual needs for other entities with whom to exchange. In this sense, all economic theory is exchange theory.

Neoclassical economics determines the value of a commodity on the basis of utility derived from it. The more utility that one derives from consuming a commodity, the higher would be its value. Utilitarianism is the underpinning of the theory, which holds this value to be the true value despite the fact that pleasure, is an entirely subjective feeling that varies from consumer to consumer. The theory holds that when commodity A is exchanged for commodity B, the ratio in which the exchange occurs is determined by marginal utility (MU) derived by consuming the last units of commodity A and B. The crucial point is that the origin of value lies essentially in the institution of the market since this is the arena where isolated individual exchanges occur. Hence, the successful functioning of markets reveals how the values of commodities reflect their true values because free market exchanges are seen as complete contracts.

This ideation of utilitarianism does not question the social origins of conscious human desires. The Benthamite dictum that nature places mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters-pain and pleasure-reigns supreme. The issue of whether or not desires are exclusively metaphysically given is completely ignored. Human beings are simply assumed to be sophisticated calculating maximizers of utility. Hence, it is understood that exertions of work by individuals are never undertaken without the promise (with respect to consumption) of greater pleasure or the avoidance of greater pain (Hunt, 2001: 132). Differing social and cultural contexts make no difference whatsoever.

In this sense, neoclassical economics rests on the notion that Robison Crusoe is the natural, universal, pervasive unalterable characteristic of all human beings in all societies. The aim is to demonstrate how the competitive capitalist economy automatically obtains efficient situations in which it is impossible to make one person better off without necessarily making someone else worse off whereby unique organizations of production, exchange and distribution lead to maximum attainable social welfare.

Situations of conflict are defined away; situations where improving the lot of one unit is not opposed by other naturally antagonistic units are rare within this view. Since the level of analysis is on rational calculating individual units and not social units, how can changes that might make some better off without making others worse be discerned? It precludes the scientific evaluation of the degree to which existing desires reflect underlying universal human needs and the particular sets of social institutions that enhance the necessary capabilities for which these human needs can be met.

In addition, the most essential differentiating feature of capitalism-private property-is viewed as eternal, universal, and inherently just. It absolves capitalism of all the exploitation that is undertaken to produce and make profits. Total income of society is produced and distributed simply by some sort of 'natural law'. Thus, if workers have appropriate moral virtues and exercise responsibility, jurisprudence, self-control, and unremitting hard work, they can easily become entrepreneurs and accumulate capital.

Heterodox economics, on the other hand, examines the welfare of human beings through a lens that accentuates and exhibits interconnections. Within this preanalytical vision, it is appropriate to speak of systems of human behavior and visualize modes of productions that govern how human beings relate each other at historically specific times in the process of extracting from nature the means for human survival.

Starting with an analytical framework that invokes recognition of specific modes of production, we have the capacity elucidate the underlying processes that actually govern how the products of labor are distributed and how labor in general is assigned to specific technical processes. From this perspective, we can visualize historically specific modes of political power gives us the means that detail the apparent characteristics of social decision-making and the ordering of rights, privileges and responsibilities.

In contrast to utilitarianism of neoclassical economics, heterodox economics understands human beings distinctly as producers and focuses on the fact that the starting point of any theory is the recognition that that in all societies the process of production can be reduced to series of human exertions. It is ascertained that humans, unlike animals, generally cannot survive without exerting effort transforming natural environments into more suitable living spaces. Where utilitarianism sees humans in individualistic terms where there is no difference between exchanging with nature and exchanging with other human beings, heterodox economics sees human beings as cooperative social beings dependent on each other for human survival.

Since capitalism directs production solely for the impersonal institution of the market, interdependent labor is indirectly social. To illustrate this, Karl Marx noted:

Under the rural patriarchal system of production, when spinner and weaver lived under the same roof-the women of the family spinning and the men weaving, say for the requirements of the family-yarn and linen were social products, and spinning and weaving social labor within the framework of the family. But their social character did not appear in the form of yarn becoming a universal character exchanged for linen as a universal equivalent, i.e., of two products exchanging for each other as equal and equally valid expressions of the same universal labor time [as it w would be the case under capitalism]. On the contrary, the product of labor bore the specific social imprint of the family relationship with its naturally evolved division of labor. Or let us take the services and dues in kind of the Middle Ages. It was the distinct labor of the individual in its original form, the particular features of his labor and not its universal aspect that formed the social ties at that time. Or finally let us take communal labor in its spontaneously evolved form as we find it among all civilized nations at the dawn of their history. In this case the social character of labor is evidently not affected by the labor of the individual assuming the abstract form of universal labor…The communal system on which this mode of production is based prevents the labor of an individual from becoming private labor and his product the private product of a individual; it causes individual labor to appear rather as the direct function of a member of the social organization (cited in Hunt, 1991).

In addition,

As a general rule, articles of utility become commodities only because they are products of the labor of private individuals or groups of individuals who carry on their work independently of each other [in capitalism]. The sum total of the entire labor of these private individuals forms the aggregate labor of society. Since the producers do not come into social contact with each other until they exchange their products, the specific social character of each producer's labor does not show itself except in the act of exchange. In other words, the labor of the individual asserts itself as a part of the labor of society, only by means of the relations which the act of exchange establishes directly between the products, and indirectly, through them, between the producers. To the latter, therefore, the relations connecting the labor of one individual with that of the rest appear, not as direct social relations between individuals at work, but as…social relations between things (cited in Hunt, 1991).

Heterodox economics exposes the true nature of social organization under capitalism that leads to extraordinarily pernicious effects on workers. The capitalist market systematically prevents many from developing real conscious desires that reflect potentialities for self-realization and self-appreciation, i.e. become "emotionally, intellectually, esthetically developed human beings" (Hunt, 2002:242). Human senses are shaped and refined through working and transforming nature into useful things. It is through one's relations with what one produces that an individual achieves pleasure and satisfaction. Through visible direct interdependent social production, recognitions of one's ability, dexterity, and talent are palpable. Under capitalism, however, the scenario is quite different:

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all […] idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley […] ties […], and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash payment. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philosophical sentimentalism, in the icy water of egoistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value (cited in Hunt, 2002: 242).

This social organization of production is not oriented to human needs and aspirations, but rather by profit calculations estimated by legally protected extortionists (capitalists, or the bourgeoisie). The effects are total and degradation and total dehumanization of working-class people where they are reduced to nothing but disconnected brutes engaged in simple animal functions, not developing freely their physical and mental capacities. Capitalism, as such, is the accumulation of wealth at one pole, and the accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, and mental degradation at the opposite pole (Cited in Hunt, 2002: 244).

Heterodox economic analysis make it apparent whether or not society meets basic human needs and are translated into realized conscious desires for higher stages of human development. It shows that with a materialist approach to the study how humans relate to each other and organize to produce what is necessary for survival one can justifiably assert whether certain systems of human behavior do, in fact, generate the conditions for social harmony.

In hindsight, it is nearly impossible (if not completely impossible) to formulate egalitarian economic and social policies based on neoclassical ontology and epistemology. Perspectives that only consider market exchange, with a reductionist sense of human desire, systematically disregard the social nature of production; in the final instance, they effectively negate clear understandings of the totality of socioeconomic inequity (Campbell, 2010).

***NOTE - This neither covers the social nature of money nor the heterodox Post-Keynesian/Sraffian perspective, which are quite pertinent; as such, it is worthwhile for the student to refer to the following:

Aspromourgos, Tony. 1960. “Sraffa’s System in Relation to Some Main Currents in Unorthodox Economics.” Pp. 2–4 in Conference on Sraffa’s Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, vol. 2010. Retrieved September 21, 2014 (http://host.uniroma3.it/eventi/sraffaconference2010/abstracts/pp_aspromourgos2.pdf).

Bellino, Enrico. 2004. “On Sraffa’s Standard Commodity.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 28(1):121–32.

Bellofiore, R. 1989. "A Monetary Labor Theory of Value." Review of Radical Political Economics 21(1-2):1-25.

Bortis, Heinrich. 2002. “Piero Sraffa and the Revival of Classical Political Economy.” Journal of Economic Studies 29(1):74–89.

Bortis, Heinrich. 2003. “Keynes and the Classics: Notes on the Monetary Theory of Production.” Modern Theories of Money: The nature and role of money in capitalist economies 411–75.

Hein, Eckhard. 2006. "Money, Interest and Capital Accumulation in Karl Marx's Economics: A Monetary Interpretation and Some Similarities to Post-Keynesian Approaches *." The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 13(1):113-40.

Hein, E. 2008. "Marxian and Post-Keynesian Theory-Similarities and Differences Part 2: Monetary Analysis in Marx and Similarities to Post-Keynesian Approaches." Berlin, Germany. Retrieved June 9, 2014 ( http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/v_2008_07_27_hein_lecture.pdf).

Ingham, G. 1996. "Money Is a Social Relation." Review of Social Economy 54(4):507-29.

Ingham, G. 1996. "Some Recent Changes in the Relationship between Economics and Sociology."Cambridge Journal of Economics 20(2):243-75.

Ingham, G. 1999. "Capitalism, Money and Banking: A Critique of Recent Historical Sociology." The British Journal of Sociology 50(1):76-96.

Kurz, Heinz D. and Neri Salvadori. 1998. Understanding “Classical” Economics Studies in Long-Period Theory. London; New York: Routledge.

Kurz, Heinz D. and Neri Salvadori. 2005. “Representing the Production and Circulation of Commodities in Material Terms: On Sraffa’s Objectivism.” Review of Political Economy 17(3):413–41.

Screpanti, Ernesto and Stefano Zamagni. 2005. An Outline of the History of Economic Thought. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

Signorino, Rodolfo. 2005. “Piero Sraffa’s Lectures on the Advanced Theory of Value 1928–31 and the Rediscovery of the Classical Approach.” Review of Political Economy 17(3):359–80.

Sinha, Ajit. 2002. “Reading Sraffa: The Philosophical Underpinnings of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities.” Retrieved April 2, 2015 (http://www.gipe.ac.in/pdfs/working%20papers/wp2.pdf).

Vianello, Fernando. 1985. “The Pace of Accumulation.” Political Economy: Studies in the Suplus Approach 1(1):69–88.


Works Cited:

Arge, R. C. and E.K. Hunt. 1971. "Environmental Pollution, Externalities, and Conventional Economic Wisdom: A Critique." Envtl. Aff. 1:266.

Campbell, Al. 2010. "Marx and Engels' Vision of a Better Society." Forum for Social Economics39(3):269-78.

Foley, Duncan. 2004. "Rationality and Ideology in Economics." Social Research: An International Quarterly 71(2):329-42.

Hunt, E. K. 2005. "The Normative Foundations of Social Theory: An Essay on the Criteria Defining Social Economics." Review of Social Economy 63(3):423-45.

Hunt, E.K. 2002. History of Economic Thought. 2nd Ed., Armonk, NY: M.E Sharpe.

Hunt, E.K. 1991."The Role of Value Theory in the History of Thought," in Hunt, E.K and Rajani K. Kanth.Explorations in Political Economy. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Hunt, E. K. 1983. "Joan Robinson and the Labour Theory of Value." Cambridge Journal of Economics7:331-42.

Lawson, Tony. 1989. "Abstraction, Tendencies and Stylised Facts: A Realist Approach to Economic Analysis." Cambridge Journal of Economics 13:59-78.

Lars Syll On Methodological Critique of Austrian Economics

By Lars Syll [h/t] Jan Milch

This is a fair presentation and critique of Austrian methodology. But beware! In theoretical and methodological questions it’s not always either-or. We have to be open-minded and pluralistic enough not to throw out the baby with the bath water — and fail to secure insights like this:

What is the problem we wish to solve when we try to construct a rational economic order?… If we possess all the relevant information, if we can start out from a given system of preferences, and if we command complete knowledge of available means, the problem which remains is purely one of logic…

This, however, is emphatically not the economic problem which society faces…The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess. The economic problem of society is…a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality.

This character of the fundamental problem has, I am afraid, been obscured rather than illuminated by many of the recent refinements of economic theory…Many of the current disputes with regard to both economic theory and economic policy have their common origin in a misconception about the nature of the economic problem of society. This misconception in turn is due to an erroneous transfer to social phenomena of the habits of thought we have developed in dealing with the phenomena of nature…

Read rest here (and be sure to check out the comments made by Paul Davidson!).

Two Cents on Birner's 'The Cambridge Controversies in Capital Theory'

I just finished perusing Jack Birner's "The Cambridge Controversies in Capital Theory" (see here). My brief take is that although the author provides a thorough and lucid analysis & exposé of the debates, I certainly do not agree with his assumption that the issues involved primarily dealt with a fundamental difference over research programmatic technique & methodology, with ideology being merely secondary, if not superfluous. This is quite untrue; ideology was at the very core! For more on this, I recommend G.C. Harcourt's "Some Cambridge Controversies in The Theory of Capital" (see here) and Andrés Lazzarini's "Revisiting the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies: A Historical and Analytical Study" (see here).

Rescuing Sartre From Anachronistic Individualism

In this updated version, see here, István Mészáros lucidly rescues Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist anthropology from the philosophical hermeneutic watershed of anachronistic individualism. The author critically examines evidence for a complementarity between Sartre's phenomonological ontology with historical-materialism, while paying particular attention to how Sartre's work is largely contributive to the Marxist Humanist attention to forms of social consciousness. What is stressed is that although Sartre rejects the 'dialectics of nature', this is not a total rejection of the dialectical method, since Sartre's attention to issues of morality are squarely placed in a historically-specific social context, specifically with respect to the parameters and social practices of capitalism, whereby, in similar fashion to Marx's concern with the dialectical contradictions between authentic human development and alienation, 'nothingness', or 'free will', is limited by the extent to which the actually existing physical world forces mankind to be subservient to constrained subjectivities, of which meaningful sense of self and dignity are lost in translation.

PS: Note that Mészáros is often considered part of Marxist Humanism, a school that emphasizes Marx's early writings, in particular his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. Mészáros most famous book is on Marx's theory of alienation here (and where he applies Marx's theory of alienation to reassessing the socialist alternative, and the conditions for its realization, is here). For the more directly relevant economic aspects of Marx's critique and reconstruction of the surplus approach one only needs to read his Theories of Surplus Value and, obviously, Capital (and the extent to which Piero Sraffa revived Marxist Economic Theory - see here & here ). Mind you, this is not to suggest an epistemological break in Marx's work, as authors like Louis Althusser have propounded. For debates on the supposed structural discontinuity, see here (subscription required) and here.

The Wisdom of Classical Realism In International Relations

The epistemological practicality of theory is to draw a unifying essence, a sensibility of coherence, to latent functions alleged to govern manifested social phenomena, so as to strive to apperceive a richer, fuller, more comprehensive view of our social world. In this sense, theory establishes the appropriate consciousness needed to untie the Gordian knot of social complexity, in order to surpass rudimentary assumptions concerning the nature of human social interaction. Accordingly, this invokes perspicacity, which is concerned with elucidating the intrinsic underlying causal relationships that ultimately rest on tendentious conceptions of what is to be determined as socially significant—the Hegelian ‘notion’ of truth submerged and contained within the confines of appeared ‘being’— that furnishes meaning and understandability. As Steve Smith (1996) argues, ‘theories do not simply explain or predict, they tell us what possibilities exist for human action and intervention; they define not merely our explanatory possibilities, but also our ethical and practical horizons’. 

The reason we must be concerned with theory [is because] all discussions of international politics […] proceed upon theoretical assumptions which we should acknowledge and investigate rather than ignore or leave unchallenged. The enterprise of theoretical investigation is […] towards identifying, formulating, refining, and questioning the general assumptions on which the everyday discussion of international politics proceeds. At its maximum, the enterprise is concerned with theoretical construction: with establishing that certain assumptions are true while others are false, certain arguments valid while others are invalid, and so proceeding to erect a firm structure of knowledge (Bull, 1972).

Social scientists develop, consider, and use, various theoretical orientations as ideational frameworks to provide explanatory accounts of social phenomena. Assumptions concerning the nature of social reality are thus fundamental; theory the perceivance of social reality via the process of social inquiry is not antonymous. Hence, theoretical lenses are structured by deeper philosophical commitments, and, as a result, will produce different types of stories, narratives, and debates that reflect those commitments (Sterling-Folker, 2009).  Theory is intrinsically normative for it incorporates a set of ‘prescriptions as to how men should conduct themselves’ (Bull, 1976). What Joseph Schumpeter labeled as ‘pre-analytical visions’ dictate modes of examination and inquisition. Second-order questions of ontology concerning the nature human agency, and its relationship to social structures, lies at the beginning of any theoretically induced social-scientific enquiry. The implication is that it is merely impossible to define a social problem without considering what is to be determined as problematic (Cox, 1992: 132). ‘Pre-analytical visions’ will lead to entirely different attitudes towards social settings, and, as such, will have pertinent implications for normative assessments of social phenomena. 

This then begs the question of whether or not one can accurately actually make reference to a single systematic body of knowledge when approaching the nature of social reality, given the likelihood of problems arising from explanatory specificity, scope, and intellectual nuance. Despite this caveat, however, it is possible to be pragmatic and place theories into Procrustean beds, especially when the context is the peculiar social apparatus of world politics.  With this mind, the rest of this essay examines the sociology of knowledge that underpins Realist theorizing in order to asses to what degree the tradition has rendered the field of international relations intelligible. 

The Wisdom of Classical Realism

Realism attempts to explicate perceived structures and tendencies of relations among nation-states in an objective state of anarchy.   An international authority, or world government, a superstructure of ‘political society’, in the Neo-Gramscian sense, which acts as universally socially legitimate magistracy, does not exist. That is, an institution uniquely concerned with the consideration, generation, and transformation of global common interests and understandings, so as to provide a broadly shared forum of appropriate rules and procedures, such that a democratic sociological imagination is universally manifested, is absent. 

The international community is without government, without a central authority to preserve law and order, and it does not guarantee the member states either their territorial integrity, their political independence, or their rights under international law. States exist, therefore, primarily in terms of their own strength or that of their protector states and, if they wish to maintain their independence, they must make the preservation or improvement of their power position the principal objective of foreign policy (Spykman, 1942: 446; cited in Parent & Baron, 2011).

It is presumed world politics is a dangerous jungle of insecurity. Given this precariousness, issues of survival are of import as they relate to rational behavior under less than ideal conditions—a predicament of coercion-by-force-of-circumstance that begets fear of besiegement at the behest of power-hungry competing nations. Chaos is the ‘form of control’ (Gilpin, 1981: 27), so to speak, that institutionalizes a mode of inter-state interaction which is, ipso facto, fundamentally aggressive. As a result, supreme political authority lies only at the level of the nation-state, as it is deemed the most functional institution of civil society for providing the public good of collective security; it is the secure monopolization over the means of violence at the micro-level which allows the ‘rule of law’ to seemingly reconcile palpable collective costs owing to potential clashes of interests among social classes (Carr, 1939: 296-297; Morgenthau, 1978:10-11). This betokens the incapacitation to envisage international relations as embodying a common stock of shared conventions, values, and cultural practices that can be readily drawn upon for purposes of solving global coordination problems, which if not solved, eventually lead to war between states. Hence, to ideate an undisputed social capacity of enlightened self-interest, which can be utilized for establishing an empyrean Lockean rational contractual world social order to eclipse the imperiousness of state solipsism, is a clear testament of naiveté. 

States do not perceive themselves as essential parts of a larger interconnected and interdependent social whole—Durkheimian ‘organic solidarity’—by which the essence of philosophical idealism can, over time and space, eschew the disharmony of world politics. States are Robinson Crusoe’s up against incontrovertible forces of insecurity as they interact with each other ; the “highest wisdom lies in accepting, and adapting to these forces” (Carr, 1939: 14). 

[...] the essence of all social reality [with respect to world politics] is the [state]. The building blocks and ultimate units of [international] political life are not the individuals of liberal through nor the classes of Marxism […] Realism […] holds that the foundation of [international] political life [is] [uncongenial relationships between states] (Gilpin, 1986: 304-205). 

International relations is thus what social theorist Karl Polanyi described as a disembedded market, that is, a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma game of how to achieve Machiavellian prudence, such that that the adverse effects of predation, due to the lack of escrow mechanisms to ensure collective confidence, are deterred. Hence, an acute sensitivity to a ‘security dilemma’—the collective action problem of ‘balance of power’ amidst a Clausewitzian ‘fog of war’—is presupposed. If any form of righteousness is espoused, it ultimately rests on the degree to a state harbors “the quality of power to compel, and that in fact the strong do what they have to power to do and the weak what they have to accept” (Thucydides, 1854: 360-365).

A classic text of the Realist paradigm is Hans Morgenthau's Politics Among Nations. The author attests that in a social world where conflicts of interests are endemic, moral principles of ethical justice, particularly with respect to modern social norms of convivial peace and cooperation, can never be fully concretized. Preponderating forces to govern interstate relations in order to tame the biopower of ‘human nature’, which asseverates that man is essentially ‘evil’ and ‘barbaric’—a ‘savage’—, are nil. In this sense, the ‘first image’ of world politics consists of a pandemonium of Hobbesian brutes galvanized by lust, diffidence, and pride, in which the quest for paramountcy fosters a war of all against all to continue indefinitely (Waltz 1991: 35). The bedlam conditions states to be indubitably hostile. The implication is that states are obsequious to a competitive strife of maximizing their sway. Esprit de corps is inconceivable; a dynamic is set in motion permitting states to pursue callous foreign policy objectives of Messianic fervor (Morgenthau, 1978: 338). 

For one to posit ecumenical jus naturae et gentium of a ‘Grotian conception of international society’, a Vatellian ‘law of nations’ , if you will, so as to inexorably extricate the means by which to achieve, teleologically, Kantian ‘perpetual peace’ premised on the elements of pacta sunt servanda is to not only engage in contrivance, but heedlessly lose oneself in pure fantasy. That is, such phenomenological aloofness ultimately amounts to a red herring of ‘hypothetical imperative’, in order to bolster a Platonic archetype that “presupposes [an] existence […] which actually does not exist” (Morgenthau, 1978: 559).  “There is something spectacular in the radical simplicity of a formula that with one sweep seems to dispose the problem of war once and for all” (Morgenthau, 1978: 558). “It is […] important not to make greater demands on human nature than its frailty can satisfy” (Treitschke, 1916: 590). The basis upon which one can view international relations as something less than bellum omnium contra omnes is chimerical; the essence of animus dominandi nullifies the ‘possible world’ of appetitus societatis. The supposition that a relatively pacifistic global commonwealth can be institutionalized is absurd. Ergo, despite illusory aspirations of catholic righteous indignation, “the ethics of international politics reverts to the politics and morality of tribalism [...]” (Morgenthau, 1978: 262). More the point, “when a nation invokes […] ‘the conscience of mankind’ […] it appeals to nothing real. It only […] only serves to underline the [unprincipledness] of the appeal” (Morgenthau, 1978: 279). Hence, “it is profitless to imagine a hypothetical world in which [states] no longer organize themselves […] for purposes of conflict (Carr, 1946: 231).

[…] realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with […] moral laws that govern the universe […] The lighthearted equation between a particular nationalism and the counsels of Providence is morally indefensible, for it is that very sin of pride against which the Greek tragedians and the Biblical prophets have warned rulers and ruled. The equation is also politically pernicious, for it is liable to engender the distortion in judgment which, in the blindness of crusading frenzy, destroys nations and civilizations (Morgenthau, 1978:11).

The presumption of a fecundity to mechanically yield harmonious Elysian ‘right reason’ cannot apply “to the actions of states in their abstract universal formulation […]” (Morgenthau, 1978: 10). As duly noted above, the natural condition of international relations is inherently antagonistic, that is, it is perpetually riotous and tumultuous—a fracas of animosity of national vengeance. Accordingly, it is foolish to assume that reason privileges humankind the competency to construct a cosmopolitan Roussseauan ‘general will’. Hence, to ideationally concede some amicable intercontinental ‘imagined community’ is to regrettably fall prey to blinded optimism.

The immediate perceptible indication is that the substance of international relations is driven by a “desire for power-oriented prestige”, which “means [that] in [the] general practice [of world affairs] the glory of power over other [states]” reigns supreme. ‘Nationalistic universalism’ is a constant social force that “drives [states] to pose its own valuations and standards of action upon all other nations” (Morgenthau, 1978: 337). 

In a surrounding circumscribed by “opposing interests and of conflict among them” (Morgenthau, 1978:3), voraciousness undoubtedly structures the role expectations of states. Thusly, states are prompted to attach a certain subjective meaning to their world political acts, which is sociologically educed by reckoning that states are bounded by the stigma of of what Max Weber framed as instrumental rationality (zwekrational). That is, they interact with each other insofar as it is purposeful, in the sense described above, and, as such, is impelled by positional means-ends goal oriented behavior. World politics is Daniel Kahneman's laboratory of constrained optimization, whereby the motivations of states, with respect to how they approach matters of foreign policy, stem from innate desires to avoid subjection. As an Aristotelian fait social total, the aura of world politics is plagued by the Nietzschean metaphysics of an unrestrained ‘will to power’.  As such, the state must have, at all times, the means by which it can repel ‘external forces of wrongdoing, which can systematically undermine its ability to persevere in a nihilist world where ‘gladiators are fixed on one another’ in an invariable ‘posture of war’. The primary of the aim of states is to do the utmost in order to escape the possibility of being at the mercy of rivals. 

And since no nation can foresee […] miscalculations [of power dynamics], all nations must ultimately seek the maximum of power obtainable under the circumstances. Only thus can they hope to attain the maximum margin of safety commensurate with the maximum of errors they might commit. The limitless aspiration for power, potentially always present … in the power drives of nations, finds in the balance of power a mighty incentive to transform itself into an actuality (Morgenthau, 1978: 215).

Balance of power’ is the Mandevillian (or Poreto optimal, if you will) solution. That is, it is essential that states not put themselves in a position from which it cannot retreat without losing face, from which it cannot maneuver, without grave risks (Morgenthau, 1978: 550-558)—si vis pacem, para bellum. Beset by the constraining conditions, states are obliged arrange feasible plans to ensure preservation, namely, it is of due diligence that statesmen be blessed with virtù of raison d'État -- the Machiavellian notion of strategic prowess -- such that, ceteris paribus, the health and strength of the state is preserved.  It is primary that statesmen have the autonomy, as well as the flexibility to discern suitable foreign policy objectives germane to the national interest, which is upholding the independence and territorial integrity of the state to the fullest extent.  

The practical function of a theory of international relations has this in common with all political theory that it depends very much on the political environment in which it operates. In other words, political thinking is, as German sociology puts it, ‘standortgebunden’, that is to say, it is tied to a particular social situation (Morgenthau, [1961]1962: 72–3)

According to Morgenthau (1978: 5), “we must put ourselves in the position of statesman who [are forced to choose a given path of ] foreign policy under [anarchic] circumstances, and [as such] we [must] ask ourselves what we pursue if we were placed under the circumstances and had to choose from alternatives from which to successfully ensure the protection of the state in feral terrain".  Hence, what is primary is to interpret inter-state actions in world politics as not necessarily being derived by strict forces of social determinism, like the Neorealism of Kenneth Waltz, for instance, but from the angle of situational human agency. Morgenthau’s standortgebunden, as such, is intended, despite that that it can be interpreted as being psychologically-reductionist, to envisage the quagmires of international relations on the terms of those who are directly involved in shaping its dynamics - those statesmen embodied with the wherewithal to formulate geopolitical circumstantial determinations. In hindsight, it is not erroneous to cogitate that the essence of Realism is strikingly similar to the sociology of knowledge that mainstream neoclassical economics is predicated on. 

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A Short Note on Social Theory and Enquiry

The epistemological practicality of social theory is to draw a unifying essence, a sensibility of coherence, to latent functions alleged to govern manifested social phenomena, so as to strive to apperceive a richer, fuller, more comprehensive view of the social world. It establishes the appropriate consciousness needed to untie the Gordian knot of social complexity, in order to surpass rudimentary postulates concerning the nature of human behavior. Ergo, this invokes perspicacity, which is concerned with elucidating the intrinsic underlying causal relationships that ultimately rest on tendentious conceptions of what is deemed socially significant—the Hegelian notion of truth submerged and contained within the confines of appeared ‘being’— and thus furnishes meaning and understandability. In this sense, social theorizing gives us a perception of what possibilities exist for social action, highlighting ethical and practical horizons.

Since theory always serves as an ideational framework to provide explanatory accounts of social phenomena, assumptions concerning the nature of social reality are fundamental. As such, aspects of conscientiousness precede empirical investigation; it is merely impossible to separate the knowing mind from the object inquiry. Theoretical lenses are structured by deeper philosophical commitments, and, as a result, they will produce different types of stories, narratives, and debates, which ultimately reflect these commitments.

For this reason, theoretical approaches are distinguished on the basis of social purpose; there is no such thing as theory in itself, divorced, as alluded to above, from social reality. Theory is intrinsically normative for it incorporates a set of prescriptions as to how humans should conduct themselves in society. Thus, what Joseph Schumpeter labeled as ‘pre-analytical visions’ dictate modes of examination and inquisition. Second-order questions of ontology concerning human agency, and its relationship to social structures, lies at the beginning of any project of social-scientific enquiry. The implication is that it is merely impossible to define a social problem without considering what exactly is to be determined as problematic. ‘Pre-analytical visions’ will lead to entirely different attitudes towards social settings, and will have pertinent implications for social-scientific assessments of the human condition.