In a now famous article on the development of political economy, Amartya Sen calls for connections to be made between its two fundamental dimensions - “economics as engineering” and “economics as ethics”, and the significance of the second dimension to be reappraised.
In the history of thought, this invitation leads us to re-read and re-assess the contribution of the early socialists, too often stigmatised for their alleged economic disagreement. In this presentation, we attempt to highlight the wealth of their contributions to “economics as ethics” and to point out that the radical stringency they showed with regard to the question of “just, good and beautiful” also led them to progress in the field of “economics as engineering”.
1.