The critique of the first pillar of economic policy as a disci­pline emerged rather early, really even before a complete statement of the discipline, and required some time to be overcome.

As said earlier, a pragmatic solution was provi­sionally adopted, but one based on logical, political and philosophical premises was suggested only about two dec­ades after the critique. Re-establishing the second pillar required a longer time span, which also began some decades after the initial critique, but it has been accomplished only rather recently. In this chapter we deal with the solution suggested for the critique of the first pillar in Section 3.1. All the following sections of the chapter are devoted to the long process that laid the premises for overcoming the cri­tique of the second pillar. The re-establishment of the second pillar is the object of Chapter 4.

3.1