Título: Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Seção: Critique of economics
Background: Roberto Mangabeira Unger (; born 24 March 1947) is a philosopher and politician. He has developed his views and positions across many fields, including social, political, and economic theory. In legal theory, he is best known by his work in the 1970s and 80s while at Harvard Law School as part of the Critical Legal Studies movement, which is held to have helped disrupt the methodological consensus in American law schools. His political activity helped the transition to democracy in Brazil in the aftermath of the military regime, and culminated with his appointment as Brazil's Minister of Strategic Affairs in 2007 and again in 2015.

Conteúdo: Unger's critique of economics begins with the identification of a key moment in economic history, when the analysis of production and exchange turned away from social theory and engaged in a quest for scientific objectivity. In Unger's analysis, classical economics focused on the causal relations among social activities, which were connected with the production and distribution of wealth. Classical economists asked questions about the true basis of value, activities that contributed to national wealth, systems of rights, or about the forms of government under which people grow rich. In the late-nineteenth century, in response to attacks from socialist ideas and debates about how society works, and as a means to escape the conundrums of value theory and to answer how values could become prices, marginalist economics arose. This movement in economics disengaged economics from prescriptive and normative commitments to withdraw the study of economies from debates about how society worked and what kind of society we wanted to live in. For Unger, this moment in the history of economics robbed it of any analytical or practical value.  Unger's critique of Marginalism begins with Walras' equilibrium theory, which attempted to achieve a certainty of economic analysis by putting aside normative controversies of social organization. Unger finds three weaknesses that crippled the theory: foremost, the theory claimed that equilibrium would be spontaneously generated in a market economy. In

user: What does he have to say about economics?

assistant: Unger's critique of economics begins with the identification of a key moment in economic history,

user: What is the key moment?

assistant: the analysis of production and exchange turned away from social theory and engaged in a quest for scientific objectivity.

user: Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?

assistant: In Unger's analysis, classical economics focused on the causal relations among social activities,

user: What else did he have to say of note about economics?

assistant: Classical economists asked questions about the true basis of value, activities that contributed to national wealth, systems of rights, or about the forms of government

user: What is the most fascinating aspect of this article?

assistant:   The consequences of the marginalist movement were profound for the study of economics, Unger says. The

user: What did he have to say?

assistant: The most immediate problem is that under this generalizing tendency of economics,