Market rationality versus ecological rationality: a critique of the so-called "unique thinking" in economics and social sciences

Abstract

From its origins the orthodox economy (or what Marx called "vulgar" economy) has been used as an infallible discipline of universal validity. Regardless of the social context, it is assumed that in all societies individuals (economic agents) are perfectly rational, so their decisions of consumption or production are always and everywhere, unequivocally maximizing. Such decisions lead to an "efficient" allocation of resources through the market mechanism, collectively shaping a kind of market rationality. However, there are other rationalities from which societies construct different worldviews, presenting behaviors that do not respond to the principles established by the individualistic utilitarianism that conventional economy preaches. Unrelated dominant knowledge has shown its inability to respond to the great cha-llenges facing modern society, among others those related to poverty that overwhelms three quarters of the world population, hunger, social exclusion, the ancestry of crime, climate change and the seemingly irrepressible loss of biotic resources.Faced with this recognized incapacity, the integration of alternative knowledge is demanded, until now segregated by Western thought and the so-called instrumental-utilitarian rationality, to give rise to new visions, with greater explanatory capacity, more inclusive and diverse. From the epistemic alternation, environmental knowledge or environmental rationality reappears, which is based on values that place the human being in its integrality, diversity and differences at the center of the analysis.Under this framework of analysis, the objective of this reflection work is to con-front both types of rationality from the analysis of the principles and cosmovisions that give structure and meaning to each one of them.