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The “ideal market” as a normative figure of thought. Analysing the reasoning of the World Bank pro land grabbing Tanja von Egan-Krieger [Denkfabrik für Wirtschaftsethik, Berlin, Germany]

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Abstract The self-conception of most mainstream economists relies on the opinion that economics is a value-free science. By contrast, I argue that every economic theory necessarily implies normative assertions. Not only the questions under investigation but also the answers given are always influenced by normative convictions. Subsequently, I will inductively reconstruct some of the specific normativity of economic mainstream theory by analysing the political economic debate on largescale land acquisition. This article focusses on the reasoning of the World Bank as one main proponent. It shows in which way the arguments of the World Bank are based on key economic terms and how these terms are normative, albeit implicitly. At its heart is a kind of “market faith”. The reconstruction of this normativity conveys a critique of the World Banks arguments by showing after careful analysis that these arguments in favour of large-scale land acquisition do not hold. Keywords: Market faith, ideal market, normative presumptions of economic theory, large-scale land acquisition, land grabbing, World Bank JEL classification: P16, Q18

1. Introduction The self-conception of mainstream economics – by which I mean the style of economics taught and practised in today’s graduate schools which is mainly grounded in neoclassical theory – relies on the opinion that economics is a value-free science. The claim of mainstream economics and the self-image of the discipline as a value-free endeavour in its 1 core as a science is very well documented. However, there are some prominent economists working on the edge of mainstream economics who are very reflective about their normative 2 assumptions. Economics as a science regards itself as necessarily being concerned with descriptions and explanations, which often are opposed to prescriptions as the seemingly 

Declarations of interest: none. Funding: This work was financially supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research [grant number 01UN1012A]. 1 In representative economic textbooks, which particularly express the mainstream view, one can find notions of the value-freedom of what is stated in the book. In Gregory Mankiws Principles of Economics (2014: p. 28 f) one can read that only “positive analysis” is “scientific” and “normative analysis” is not. “When you hear economists making normative statements, you know they have crossed the line from scientist to policy adviser, I don’t view the study of economics as laden with ideology”. th Hal Varian (Intermediate Microeconomics, 2010, 8 ed., p. 446) considers the Pareto criterion (“efficiency”) as a value-neutral norm. In other textbooks one finds the notion that economics is concerned “with both positive and normative th questions” (Pindyck/Rubinfeld: Microeconomics, 9 . ed., Global Edition, 2018, p. 28 f). However, a “normative approach” starts not until p. 607 ff. Also, “normative questions” are just conditional imperatives, imperatives of self-interest. And “value judgements” are not part of economics. (“When value judgements are involved, microeconomics cannot tell us what the best policy is.”) On the other hand, the notion of a “distortion” of the “functioning of a market” (p. 150), leading to “the economy as a whole to be productively inefficient” (p. 628), is regarded as value-free, i.e. beyond ethical doubts or reflections. th In Samuelson/Nordhaus (Economics, 19 ed., 2010) there is a “positive” and a “normative” strand in the whole of economics (p. 6), but only “positive economics” is regarded as “science”. 2 For example Amartya Sen (Sen 1987).