Implications of Non-Monetary Objectives in the Agricultural Policy of the European Community

Abstract

My reflections are related to the plea by Michael Petit, put forward in his contribution to this volume, to discard the concept of the social utility function. Petit argues that the course of the agricultural policy in the European Community is not determined by the desire of the decision-making institutions to maximise some kind of social utility, but by the need to find a tolerable compromise between the conflicting interests of the participating groups. Even scientific economists, so argues Petit, would not be able to determine a social utility function with respect to the Community’s common agricultural policy. The results of the analyses are always biased by their respective national interests, thus proving Popper’s famous remark: ‘Take subjective value judgement away from a social scientist and you will take away his personality.’