ABSTRACT
Adam's fallacy, according to Duncan Foley (2006: xii), is “the idea that it is possible to separate an economic sphere of life, in which the pursuit of self interest is guided by objective laws to a socially beneficent outcome, from the rest of social life, in which the pursuit of self-interest is morally problematic.” He thus challenges “the foundation of political economy and economics as an intellectual discipline,” which, he writes, is based on the “separation of an economic sphere … from the much messier, less determinate and morally more problematic issues of politics, social conflict and values.” Here I propose to correct Adam's fallacy by integrating the “economic sphere” with the world of “politics, social conflict, and values.”
