Die normative Ko-Evolution von Marktwirtschaft und Demokratie / Normative Co-Evolution of the Market System and of Democracy

The central concept of Karl Popper´s idea of an Open Society is the one of “piecemeal engineering”. Using the model of homo oeconomicus economics has provided a coherent justification of piecemeal engineering by means of cost-benefit analysis in a partial equilibrium setting (Kaldor-Hicks-Scitovsky criterion). But preferences are not fixed. Can we then still find a coherent justification of Karl Popper´s piecemeal engineering? The answer is yes, if preferences are “adaptive”. But adaptivity of preferences implies a strong adherence to the status quo. For the generation of progress (for example, by legislation, by expanding infrastructure or by introducing a new product) society has to decentralize decision making, i.e. it has to rely on a market system and on freedom of speech and of research. On the other hand, preferences of citizens only can be the legitimate normative guidelines of private market oriented and of collective decisions if interpersonal impacts on preferences are part of a system of competing interpersonal ”influences” of on preferences. But this requirement for legitimacy leads to “deliberative democracy” as a precondition of the market system. Perhaps the most important mode of inter-personal influence on preferences is imitation of others; for example imitation of parents by their children. It can be shown that the coherence requirement of piecemeal engineering under conditions of inter-personal influences on preferences is fulfilled, if these interpersonal influences exhibit the mode of imitation.