Ethics and Economics as a “Value-free” Science

[Editor’s note: This article is a part of The Fraudulent and Ruinous Nature of Fiat Monetary Systems. This version is slightly expanded]

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Western economic models are based on materialist, positivist, and utilitarian philosophical frameworks. These are consequentialist philosophies that imply there is no absolute right or wrong. Instead, the ethical evaluation of an action or policy depends on whether it leads to a desired outcome, such as greater satisfaction, economic gains, or territorial expansion.

According to consequentialist frameworks, the end justifies the means, even if it involves deception, theft, coercion, or aggression. Such frameworks are considered teleological ethics, which focuses on the consequences of an action, in contrast to deontological ethics, which holds that some actions are inherently wrong and should not be pursued, regardless of the desired outcomes they may produce.

For utilitarian and other consequentialist frameworks, if the majority within a society believes that dispossessing or even killing off a minority group would bring them greater pleasure, property, or some other benefit, then the action could be justified. Consequentialist approaches to ethics are dangerous as they can lead to various potential evils and a culture of injustice, as desired outcomes take precedence over considerations of inherent rights or wrongs as a criterion for evaluating the legitimacy of actions or policies. Indeed, past and present atrocities and the tragic state of the current world, based on ethics-free theories and policies, reflect as much.

The teleological nature of these philosophical frameworks makes them ambiguous, relative, and unreliable, as they do not seek to provide universally valid ethical standards. Thus, philosophical materialism, utilitarianism, and other consequentialist frameworks of teleological ethics do not provide sound and reliable ethics as they rely on moral subjectivism and relativism.

Moral subjectivism and relativism cannot provide a basis for sound morality (universally valid moral principles) that can help foster human peace, prosperity, and civilization. In other words, consequentialist approaches to ethics lack true ethics as they fail to provide universally applicable ethical standards.

Western economics and other social sciences have developed within this consequentialist context, lacking proper ethical grounding and based on a mechanistic conception of humans. The prevailing Western worldview, with its Darwinian basis, is animalistic, racist, rivalrous, and aggressive, lacking ethical standards. This has led and continues to lead to widespread oppression, conflicts, and atrocities.

From the Western perspective, the concept of objective and universal moral principles may seem implausible. However, it is crucial to recognize that a universal moral order exists, and it is a fundamental characteristic of human nature and existence. This fact, which is one of the fundamental features distinguishing humans from animals, underscores the need to reevaluate the ethics-free (utilitarian, positivist) approach of Western economics and other social sciences. The lack of sound ethical foundations in these disciplines has led to profound confusion and distortions, causing incessant economic turmoil, destruction, and avoidable human suffering.

The lack of ethical standards is the fundamental reason for the disarray and distortions in economics and other social science fields. Economics is often called the dismal science. It is not inherently dismal, but consequentialist frameworks upon which Western economics and other social sciences rest have profoundly confused and distorted these social science disciplines.

The ethics-free (referred to as “value-free”) nature of Western economics and other social sciences has proven disastrous, having thrown these fields into profound disarray, resulting in the prevalence of hubristic yet flawed models with coercive, confiscatory, and repressive policy implications.

Instead of promoting justice, prosperity, and peaceful human relations, as a commendable social science should, Western economics is characterized by flawed and, in some cases, absurd models involving coercive, fraudulent, and confiscatory policies enforced by the threat of state aggression.

This has led to the current statist world of centralized socioeconomic management, marked by structural injustice, debt crisis, economic turmoil, stagnation, and constant conflicts, resulting in widespread corruption and destruction. It is worth noting that the ethics-free nature of Western economics and other social sciences is simply a reflection of the Western worldview and culture.

Africonomics takes a fundamentally different approach, rejecting the prevailing mechanistic-animalistic Western conception of humans and philosophical materialism, positivism, and utilitarianism. Africonomics, a school of African philosophical and economic thought, is the African approach to economics, jurisprudence, and other social sciences based on a natural-moral law philosophical framework. Unlike Western economics and other social sciences, natural-law ethics and justice considerations are central in Africonomics to foster justice, prosperity, and peaceful human relations.

Africonomics recognizes the existence of universal moral principles. Morality and ethical discernment capacity are fundamental features that differentiate humans from animals. Contrary to the prevailing Darwinian evolutionary theory, Africonomics holds that humans are created beings rather than more advanced animals that evolved randomly through a dialectical process of naturalist selection.

The foundational philosophical premise, the starting point of analysis in Africonomics, is the recognition of God as the transcendental creator and, therefore, the source of natural law, universal moral principles, and the origin of humankind. Recognizing the existence of a transcendental creator indicates the theist, distinctly principled, and human worldview of Africonomics, setting it apart from schools of Western economic thought.

In his study on fractional reserve banking, the social philosopher and economist Manuel Tacanho (2024) remarks:

Unlike other creatures, humankind has innate morality and ethical discernment capacity. This allows humans to distinguish right from wrong, ethical from unethical, and good from evil. This shared understanding of moral principles and ethical discernment constitutes a universal standard for justice in human relations and coexistence, setting humans apart from animals and other life forms on Earth. Unlike animals, humans have moral obligations in their actions and interactions. Theories that lack ethical grounding and whose policy implications result in fraudulent, confiscatory, and oppressive practices can be considered primitive, animalistic, and uncivilized. Such models are pseudoscientific, even if lauded for their apparent scientific rigor.

To achieve optimal outcomes, jurisprudence, economics, and other social sciences must be rooted in natural law ethics to prioritize justice, minimize injustice, and foster peaceful human relations. As the sciences of humans, their [rights, responsibilities, and] actions, economics, and other social sciences need ethical foundations based on the universal ethical principles and moral obligations humanity shares.

Natural law ethics must be central to economics and other social sciences. It is the soundest and most beneficial approach, best fitted to minimize confusion and distortions while providing a universal standard for evaluating the nature, moral acceptability, and policy implications of theories and models.

Universally recognized ethical principles, such as refraining from deception, fraud, theft, extortion, oppression, and other forms of aggression, offer a sound framework and necessary guardrails to ensure that economic theories and their policy implications are just and do not intrinsically involve fraudulent, coercive, confiscatory, or repressive practices. This approach is essential for fostering justice, prosperity, and peaceful relations within and among human societies.

It is pertinent to underline that Africonomics does not entirely dismiss empirical methods. Africonomics partially accepts and uses empirical methods when and where applicable in a supporting role but not as the primary methodology of the social sciences. That is because economics does not deal with lifeless and senseless objects.

Economics deals with thinking, choosing, and acting human beings with natural rights, dignity, and ethical discernment capacity. Therefore, natural law ethics and justice considerations must be central in the theory and policy formulation to minimize injustice, fraud, force, and conflict in human relations and coexistence. In other words, the Africonomics approach is the most beneficial method for fostering a more just, peaceful, and genuinely civilized world.

In an article discussing the definition and purpose of economics, Tacanho (2024) notes:

The utilitarian-positivist approach, also known as “value-free” economics, has normalized coercive, fraudulent, confiscatory, and repressive policies that are severely detrimental to human progress and civilization. This has resulted in the prevalence of centralized and repressive government systems, rampant (monetary, asset, and price) inflation, widespread corruption, economic turmoil, stagnation, geopolitical conflicts, and tensions within and among nations. The Western approach to economics and other social sciences contributes to these problems and, in many cases, causes them fundamentally because it lacks ethical footing.

Tacanho (2024) continues:

Research from the V-Dem Institute and similar think tanks paints a grim picture that the world is autocratizing, with much of the progress made in global levels of democracy and openness over the past 30 years erased. This trend means existing socioeconomic systems are becoming more statist as they lean further toward centralization, coercion, and repression. For instance, V-Dem’s 2023 Democracy Report reveals that in 2022, 72 percent of the world’s population—5.7 billion people—lived in autocracies. This is a tragic reality and a startling revelation that tyrannical government systems and oppression are the norm rather than the exception in a seemingly civilized and advanced world. The widespread oppression, corruption, economic turmoil, social strife, and other issues under current state-managed socioeconomic systems are grievous consequences of the West’s superficial adoption of individual rights and market economies. Utilitarian-positivist Western economics and other social sciences have crucially contributed to this unjust and brutish condition of the modern world.

The prevailing approach in economics and other social sciences continues to cause confusion, distortions, and destruction, detrimentally impacting societies and lives worldwide. It has enabled the current racist, statist, and militarist global order established by Western imperial states rooted in a Darwinian conception of humans and human relations.

There is a growing risk of World War III, with tensions between Russia and the U.S./NATO escalating due to the ongoing war in Ukraine. Rather than promoting justice, prosperity, and peaceful relations, Western models and their associated policies have led to economic turmoil, political instability, and geopolitical conflicts, resulting in widespread tyranny, corruption, violence, destruction, and death.

Economics and other social sciences deal with people’s natural rights, actions, choices, pursuits, and relations. People should not be treated or experimented on like laboratory animals using positivist, empiricist, and technocratic methods as they are valuable and purposeful beings with dignity. Economics and other social sciences should not be “value-free,” meaning ethics-free, relying solely on consequentialist frameworks and a mechanistic-animalistic conception of humans, as this approach is unethical, dangerous, and destructive.

The contemporary approach of state-directed technocratic socioeconomic management is viciously cruel and oppressive. It is an approach that lacks humanity and morality. Thus, there is a pressing need for a more ethical and human-centered approach in social science fields and policy choices. Economics does not have to be “value-free” (devoid of ethics, solely utilitarian and positivist) to be considered scientific. Any economic theory that leads to coercive, repressive, fraudulent, or confiscatory policies is unethical, cruel, and unjust. Therefore, it is not only pseudoscientific but also inhumane and anti-science.

As first pointed out in the Africonomics paper, this situation renders mainstream and other statist economic models pseudoscientific despite their apparent scientific rigor. Mainstream economics and other statist economics approaches are morally wrong, methodologically incorrect, and fundamentally flawed because their ethics-free (utilitarian, positivist) models involve coercive, fraudulent, confiscatory, and repressive policies enforced through state aggression.

Explained another way, economic models and approaches that involve coercive, fraudulent, confiscatory, or repressive practices enforced through state aggression are pseudoscientific despite appearing to be scientifically rigorous—as they systemically violate people’s natural rights and the universal moral principles of truth, justice, and nonaggression. Such models are cruel, oppressive, and uncivilized, resulting in ruinous consequences that devastate lives, impoverish societies, and scatter conflict. This erosion of human dignity, peace, prosperity, and civilization underscores the detrimental effects of seemingly scientific yet flawed and destructive economic approaches.

With natural law ethics as a foundation and using universal ethical standards for evaluation, economists and other social science scholars can more effectively assess whether a theory or policy necessarily involves coercive, fraudulent, confiscatory, or repressive measures, thereby establishing whether it is just or unjust, sound or unsound, acceptable or unacceptable.

The fundamental purpose of economic science extends beyond the analysis of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services or the allocation of limited resources with alternative uses. While these are crucial aspects, they are secondary to economics’ more significant and beneficial purpose: to study and understand socioeconomic phenomena and establish economic truths to foster justice, prosperity, and peaceful relations within and among human societies.

In a Darwinian, statist, and militarist world facing the possibility of yet another world war, Africonomics offers a distinctly principled, human, and more beneficial approach to economics and other social sciences based on a natural-moral law philosophical framework and acknowledgment of people’s shared humanity. With Africonomics, Africa can transform itself and inspire a more prosperous, peaceful, and genuinely civilized world.