Does the Field of Comparative Economic Systems (CES) Care about the Good Society? A Feminist Angle on the Need for Institutional Analysis in CES

Abstract

Philosophers have historically asked: “What is the good society?” Correspondingly, economists have asked: “What makes for a good economic system?” (Brada 2009, 5). In the past quarter century, it has become increasingly clear within the social sciences that both of these questions and their answers depend greatly on the gender of those involved. Who considers whether a society/economy is good, and by what measures of “goodness”—men or women, and which men, which women?