Social conflicts and human tragedies often highlight the human theories underlying economic theory. During the pandemic and forced lockdowns in many countries, economic life was reduced to the physical space of the home, revealing for many the heart of the public economy as social provisioning —as Aristoteles and Adam Smith identified it centuries ago—. Today, the advance of violations against women in the war conflicts and the genocide in Palestine, with the main victims being women and children, points to a philosophical dilemma that also lies at the bottom of every type of economy: are we treating ourselves as humans in terms of equality and social justice  —created by nature or by the gods— or as beings differentiated by lines of class, nationality, race, or gender?

The history of the world is not only determined by conflicts over material goods, but also by the struggle of ideas, and what societies consider fair or not. Economic science, always divided between dominant conventional thought and plural critical thought, has made slow and uneven progress on these issues. The awarding of the Nobel Prize in Economics ¹ to feminist economics Claudia Goldin in 2023 is representative of this dynamic. A student of Gary Becker, also a Nobel Prize winner, and defender of the idea that human beings exist to accumulate money, and that the entire spirit of human activity must be understood from this perspective, Golding has traveled, although not completely, towards a vision that puts the human being and society in the first place of analysis [Small, 2023].

The same can hardly be said of the economic and social reality. Instead of an insecure and difficult path towards a future where the main motivation of economic activity is the care of human beings and the entire environment that supports life [Girón, 2024], social, natural and economic destruction seem to be coming to another climax not seen since the world wars of the last century.

It is in this context of the global Washington Consensus, and the victory of neoliberalism over the minds and hearts of the ruling classes of the international plutocracy, that Ola Financiera presents a special issue on the thought of feminist economics, including a diversity of perspectives and objects of analysis.

References:

Small, S. [2023],  The Intellectual Traditions of Nobel Laureate Claudia Goldin. Monetary Policy Institute Blog. 23 de octubre https://medium.com/
Girón, A. [2024], “Teoría feminista y economía de la vida”, en J. Morales [Ed.], Nuestra América XXI: desafíos y alternativas, [89], Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: CLACSO.

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