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Relativistic foundations of a new model of market equilibrium
https://doi.org/10.32609/0042-8736-2026-2-52-77
Abstract
The continuation of the discussion on individualism and holism can have a more general scientific justification on the basis of multidisciplinary approach and achievements of modern philosophy and sociology. As a result of introducing the principle of methodological relativism into economic theory and distinguishing four relatively independent relativist doctrines, the article presents the peculiarities of relativist methodology, which is based on two fundamental statements about the impossibility of existence of objectively neutral criteria for choosing between conflicting alternatives and that these alternatives themselves arise in different cultural contexts. An important consequence of this approach is the new research results in the field of the theory of merit goods — that part of the economy where the state participates in financing the production of goods and services with social utility. A significant part of the work is devoted to new results: it is about proving the necessity to return to a strict dichotomy in the definition of public goods (according to Samuelson) and the introduction of a new category of “normative-public goods”, the properties of non-excludability and non-competitiveness of which are acquired in the process of purposeful actions of the state, in the extreme case of the policy of meritization of private goods and services. The new results also include the construction of an equilibrium model for merit goods, an important consequence of which is the justification of an alternative exegetics of the “Harberger triangle”, which became a theoretical proof of the rehabilitation of the category of budgetary subsidy.
Keywords
individualism,
holism,
relativistic methodology,
individual utility,
social utility,
merit goods,
budget subsidy,
Harberger triangle
JEL: B40, B50, D50, H40, H41.
About the Author
A. Y. Rubinstein
Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Alexander Y. Rubinstein.
Moscow
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For citations:
Rubinstein A.Y. Relativistic foundations of a new model of market equilibrium. Voprosy Ekonomiki. 2026;(2):52-77. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.32609/0042-8736-2026-2-52-77
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