From the mid-eighties of the last century, the neoliberal economic model, devised by the anti-collectivist theorists,1 which conceptually elevates competition as a high principle, has been favoured by the ruling classes. It remains nothing but a social Darwinist contrivance for accumulation by dispossession (Harvey 2004). Since the collapse of the Soviet system, it has become almost the default model sans alternative. The endemic crises it entails and the alienation it engenders necessitate increasingly authoritative responses and demagogic strategies from the rulers, using existing social divisions in the form of castes, religions, ethnicities, and so on, which lead to the fascization of societies.

While this trend is visible everywhere today, some countries have congenial ideological resources for the fascization of their societies. India, with a hegemonic Brahminist ideology (with its hierarchical ethos and the organizational dominance of its hegemons in the state apparatus as well as in civil society) is uniquely positioned. While fascization has been discernible since the 1990s in the overt majoritarian communalism whipped up by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), it was somewhat muted by the lack of political consensus and the moral scruples of constitutional decencies.

Raising substantial criticism of rational choice theories in economics is not only a phenomenon among early bachelor’s students like I was at some point; it is not confined to the classroom. During the second half of the twentieth century, substantial attacks have been raised from various sides against the way in which economists conceptualize human behavior. We learn about some of the main critical positions through the conversations in this book. At the same time, applying rational choice theories extensively even beyond the social and behavioral sciences reveals the strong conviction among social scientists that those theories are capable of solving a variety of conceptual, methodological, and epistemic problems. The conversations in this book present some of the arguments by which this commitment has been justified by economists. They furthermore highlight different ways in which rational choice theories have been put to use for the different problems arising in economics. They reveal how theory choice is often the result of weighing the discipline’s commitment to specific epistemic ambitions in light of a particular image of science on the one hand with attempts to properly but also pragmatically cope with the messiness and complexity of the social world on the other hand. Given that economics is a policy science, these consideration of putting economic theory to use is furthermore shaped by the urgency with which solutions are sought to ground policy.

Chapter 8 summarises and concludes the analysis presented in the previous chapters. As highlighted throughout the book, the power of the courts to effectively protect freedom of expression is limited in the face of global digital networks and powerful private technology companies. This makes it all the more important to recognise not only the individual but also the institutional dimension of fundamental rights as objective value judgements under constitutional law, the implementation of which falls under the state’s duty to protect. Given the enormous technical and social complexity of the digital revolution, this task can only be accomplished through legislation.

I met Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) twice at Stanford University, the place where he lived, taught, and researched for most of his life. The first meeting was on his invitation to join him for lunch at the Stanford Faculty Club to decide whether he would schedule a meeting with me later to do the actual interview. Being a warm day under the California sun and given that he was already in his nineties, I expected Arrow to be accompanied by his wife or some other relative who would give him a ride to the club and pick him up afterward. This quickly turned out to be a complete misconception. Arrow arrived in his silver Toyota Camry all by himself and dressed up with coat and tie; he quickly entered the club and was greeted by name by almost everyone working there – including the waiters and the young woman stacking white plates next to the salad bar. He had reserved a quiet table in the back of this bright and large restaurant room that he also preferred for his weekly lunches with Pat Suppes, which they apparently have held every Monday for many years. Almost two hours later, when we finished our ice cream and said goodbye, he added, to my relief, that he would be willing to meet again at his office to conduct the interview the next week. He sprinted to his car and drove away. So, lunch had gone well; I had survived the test. Next time, we met in his office at Stanford’s sandstone-colored Landau Economics Building. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his office was literally packed with books, files, and papers. At the same time, given the elegance and orderliness of Arrow’s mathematical abstractions, there was something thrilling and even life-affirming in seeing that he kept an office in such an improvisational state – a testament to his unfiltered and teeming curiosity. After removing and stacking even more books spanning topics from environmental economics to the history of economics – the desk had disappeared under piles of notes and annotated drafts – two chairs suddenly emerged somewhere in the middle of the room. Arrow sat down, almost disappearing between these mountains of sources he had engaged with over the years.

Every 5 years, the World Congress of the Econometric Society brings together scholars from around the world. Leading scholars present state-of-the-art overviews of their areas of research, offering newcomers access to key research in economics. Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Twelfth World Congress consists of papers and commentaries presented at the Twelfth World Congress of the Econometric Society. This two-volume set includes surveys and interpretations of key developments in economics and econometrics, and discussions of future directions for a variety of topics, covering both theory and application. The first volume addresses such topics as contract theory, industrial organization, health and human capital, as well as racial justice, while the second volume includes theoretical and applied papers on climate change, time-series econometrics, and causal inference. These papers are invaluable for experienced economists seeking to broaden their knowledge or young economists new to the field.

Describes Meade’s involvement in economic policy debates during the 1960s.

Chapter 7 addresses changes in fundamental rights within the tension between social evolution and constitutional stability. How is constitutional thinking responding to the challenge posed to fundamental rights by non-state actors? How can we understand the increasing importance of technology for freedom of expression? These questions lie at the heart of the sociological view of fundamental rights as social institutions arising from modernisation. This perspective emphasises the function of fundamental rights and the emergence, growth, and impact of these norms, in contrast to the state-centred, mostly defensive understanding of fundamental rights that prevails in legal practice. The Swiss legal system provides an enlightening case study for the socially based expansion of fundamental rights. At the end of the 1950s, the Federal Supreme Court was a global pioneer in recognising various unwritten fundamental rights, resolving the tension between social change and constitutional stability through the imposition of strict conditions on the acknowledgement of unwritten rights. This makes it a remarkable example of how a national supreme court interprets its role as guardian of the development of fundamental rights with restraint, while appealing to social acceptance when democratic legitimacy was formally lacking.