 Neoliberal economics and the consumer promise: The welfarist individualGeorge Kararach () Chapter 2 in Liberating Economics From Ideologies and Dystopia, 2025, pp 31-40 from Edward Elgar Publishing Abstract: The neoliberal economic theory and related consumer promise are underpinned by the notion of utility, a general and abstract idea about human experiences of pleasure and pain. Some clear problems and inconsistencies emerge as soon as we start to explore what these neoliberal economists did with the concept of utility in their process of constructing their theory of consumption. For utility to be operable (being able to build a consistent theory on it), a set of specific characteristics must be either identified or assumed. The characteristics of utility have gone through some interesting transformations in the history of economic thought. The old consumer theorists viewed utility as quantitatively measurable, with which to build a logically consistent theory of human acquisition using the principle of diminishing marginal utility. However, important factors like information asymmetry and social influences on consumption are not adequately accounted for in this framework. While some consumer behaviours may be harmful and require regulation, consumption can also be conceived in a macroeconomic context as exemplified by the birth of monetarism. Keywords: Utility; Diminishing marginal return; Consumer behaviour; Rationality; Social welfare; Neoliberalism (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22521_3 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing |
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