Conclusion: what can we learn from the Civil Happiness tradition?

In this research we have gone through more than 2,000 years of history of thought: what have we learned?

The main ambition of this book has been to show why contemporary economic theory no longer has the methodological tools for understanding the civil nature of happiness (and its paradoxes). I tried to underline some of the key reasons for explaining why twentieth-century Economics, after the work of Wicksteed and, significantly, of Pareto, this discipline has lost any connection with the terrain of Civil Happiness. Neo-positivistic philosophy, that in the first half of the twentieth century has dominated Neoclassical Economics, has determined the cultural environment where the a-civil Economics grows speedily, shaping the way of dealing with social interactions of both General Equilibrium Theory and the New Welfare Economics. The recent interest of economists for relational goods and for the interpersonal dimensions of happiness is, however, suggestive that the civil tradition in Economics is still alive.