Frank Knight on Self-interest

Masanobu Sato ()
Additional contact information
Masanobu Sato: Kansai University

A chapter in A Genealogy of Self-Interest in Economics, 2021, pp 189-201 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The purposes of this paper were to examine Frank Knight’s analysis of the market economy and democratic discussion in terms of the character and function of self-interest, and to clarify the uniqueness of his reflections on self-interest. To this end, the paper organized the significance of the re-examination of Knight’s thought as it has developed over recent years in terms of an assessment of the proper role of self-interest in modern society. Knight’s position could be described as skepticism towards two types of optimism. The first is the optimism of the next generation of Chicago economists who saw wants as a given and affirmed an economic order based on self-interest. The second is the optimism of the liberal institutionalists regarding the control of self-interest. In contrast, Knight’s position was ambivalent, recognizing the need for and difficulty in searching for relatively absolute super-individual norms. Knight’s unique position was based on this skepticism. For him, searching for super-individual norms through discussion was necessary, but desperate in the real world. This attitude differed from that of the Chicago economists, who saw wants driven by self-interest as a given, and that of the liberal institutionalists, who were influenced by Dewey’s optimistic view that self-interest could be controlled positively. Knight’s unique position in the genealogy of self-interest is found in this ambivalent attitude toward both types of optimism, and in his nuanced consideration of a market economy and democratic discussion.

Keywords: Frtank Knight; Chicago economist; Institutionalists; Market economy; Democratic discussion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-15-9395-6_11

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789811593956

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-15-9395-6_11

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().