The Triptych and Pure Moral Science
The literature on Walras, since his death and up to the 1970s, focused on Elements d’economie politique pure, and, with a few exceptions, set aside applied and social economics.
It was not until William Jaffe’s latest contributions that Walras’s social economics began to be examined, at least by historians of economic thought. Applied economics hardly fared better. With the publication of the (Euvres economiques completes, most historians of economic thought extended the corpus to the triptych and beyond. It is not uncommon now to encounter references to Melanges d’economie politique et sociale - an interesting volume, planned to be published in 1892, though it did not come off the press except as part of the ^uvres (OEC VII) in 1987 - Cours d’economie sociale and Cours d’economiepolitique appliquee (OEC XII), and Notes d’humeur (OEC XIII). The problem of the relationships between the various components of Walras’s political and social economics is thus raised. We have seen that a triple consequence was drawn from the definition of social wealth, and from it three general facts, which give rise to three sciences: pure economics dealing with exchange value; applied economics dealing with industry; and social economics dealing with property. To study social wealth comprehensively, exchange value had to be dealt with (the theory of general economic equilibrium), but also the conditions under which social wealth is produced (applied economics) and, of course, how it is distributed (applied social economics).However, to solve the social question, Walras introduced a fourth science in 1879: pure moral science, or history, understood as the path towards the realization of human destiny, which eludes, Walras believes, man’s will, and is therefore natural, hence inevitable. Pure moral science is also the science of justice, as Walras introduced it in his essay on “Theorie de la propriete” (“Theory of property”). Therefore, the triptych actually covers four sciences, because the Etudes d’economie sociales contains pure (Parts I and II) and applied (Parts III and IV) moral science. This results in a general architecture of political and social economics that relies on explicit ontological considerations, through two natural theories (in Walras’s sense of the term) - of property and of the determination of the exchange value - to develop the reforms necessary to achieve the inevitable economic and social ideal. As Walras sees it, it is precisely failing to deal with one or more of these aspects that caused those who, before him, tackled the social question to fail. Ignoring the exchange value, giving precedence to morality or utility perspectives, and a general lack of command of good scientific methods, these are some of his predecessors’ mistakes.