Intuitions About Welfare—Under the Constraint of Computability

Abstract

There appears to be a growing pressure on businesses to take responsibility for sustainability on a local as well as a global scale. Narrow profit optimization or optimizing shareholder value no longer suffice—other stakeholders in a wide respect need to be considered in decision-making, the argument goes. This demand also holds consequences for economics—in particular for welfare economics that claims to theorize about utilizing resources to the benefit of society without the use of any moral standards or benevolence. Welfare theory started out talking about the wealth of nations but ended up with a recommendation that businesses should just mind their own business. We must ask whether economics can and should assist businesses in their new endeavour to promote sustainability.