We might say that the core of political economy in the narrow sense (PENS) has returned to the basic structure of scholastic thought, but with a secular or naturalistic prime mover. The prime mover is the ontic assumption that human beings seek to maximize their net benefits. The theory demonstrates through a system of à priori logic that this driving force will generate a mechanical social order and the highest social good if that original force is unimpeded. In this sense political economy in the narrow sense can be thought of as a grand naturalistic theology combines an explanation of both what the social world is, and why it is good. It has achieved a utopian union of positive science with normative values. More particularly, the normative conclusions, however, are contained in the initial assumptions about human behavior. No matter how objective the logical development of the argument may be, the theory itself simply makes explicit the normative elements in the initial assumptions. That is, in political economy in the narrow sense, the logic of the theory of competitive markets provides both positive analysis of the social world and normative conclusions about the world—it problematically provides both the is and the ought.
Faith in general formulae, laws, and prescription in human affairs was an attempt, sometimes catastrophic, always irrational, to escape from the uncertainty and unpredictable variety of life, to the false security of our own symmetrical fantasizes. For clearly, the events of the twentieth century—two world wars, an economically devastating arms race, fascism and authoritarianism, terror as a political instrument, genocide, technological poisoning of the environment—are difficult to explain as manifestations of rational order in human affairs. Indeed, micro rationality can lead to macro irrationality, and often does. The mechanical world view is disintegrating, and with it one of the chief conceptual foundations of political economy in the narrow sense is crumbling.