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Hayek repeatedly refers to ‘the twin ideas of evolution and spontaneous order’. Yet, critics argue that Hayek’s theory of cultural group selection is inconsistent with his theory of spontaneous order. To assess these criticisms, this paper situates Hayek’s social theory in the contemporary discussion surrounding multilevel selection. Hayek’s theory posits two main levels—rules and order—that exhibit upward and downward causation. An examination of Hayek’s theory of cultural group selection and his account of methodological individualism reveals that neither one can provide a fully adequate explanation of social phenomena. Neither individualistic nor group-selectionist analyses allow the theorist to fully account for social order, but taken together they provide a more complete explanation. Far from being substitutes, therefore, both types of analysis are complementary aspects of Hayek’s social theory. Understanding Hayek’s theory in this way allows us to glimpse how he might weigh in on contemporary debates surrounding multilevel selection in human societies.

Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis have made a broad and sustained contribution to many areas of contemporary economic thought and policy discussions, centring on human interactions in economic settings. Since the mid-1980s, their work, collectively and individually, has developed from a concern with contested exchanges to analyses of behavioural repertoires pursued through evolutionary game theory in which they claim that ‘history matters’. Despite their alignment with the mainstream, they retain an appeal to some heterodox economists. We argue that this appeal is misplaced. Their theoretical work and knowledge claims rest on methodological individualism and equilibrium reasoning, which fosters an obtuse reductionism. They present a confused methodology, which seems to be motivated by a desire to remain coherent to standard economics. We show how their acceptance of methodological individualism and ergodic modelling undermines their knowledge claims as well as their declaration that history matters in their analysis.

In this article I compare the approaches to process and order of classical political economy and marginalist economics, taking into account the implicit ontological commitments of each perspective in their explanation of capitalism. I draw on the social ontology developed by Tony Lawson, especially the notion of social positioning. The classical political economists studied the capitalist economy as a process of reproduction and distribution of the economic surplus, where socio-economic order depends on the division of society into social classes. After the marginal revolution, the classical approach is definitely abandoned, in a context where the analysis of human institutions in terms of social positions is progressively replaced by methodological individualism. This leads to a conception where the notion of socio-economic order is interpreted always in terms of market exchange between individuals, and in many cases replaced with a concern with the stability of an equilibrium situation.

Austrian economics provokes mixed reactions among critical realists. It preaches methodological individualism, marginalism, and rational choice while embracing emergence, open processes, and error. The Austrian school stands paradoxically with one foot each in the mainstream marginalist tradition and heterodox social theory. I argue that this paradox can be disentangled by appeal to the fundamental distinction between the logic of choice and the logic of action. I then extend the analysis of the logic of action to the critical realist account of the basic ontology of social structures, arguing that successful retroduction of social structures depends on marginalist insights. Copyright The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.

After noting the lack of enthusiasm of several well-known scholars concerning the adoption of both methodological holism and methodological individualism in its several versions, this paper shows that institutional individualism is a different mode of explanation from both of these and also that it is not the same thing as the so-called Popperian programme of situational analysis. Institutional individualism is a mode of explanation that yields non-systemic and non-reductionist explanations at the same time as it allows for the incorporation into economic theories and models of the many formal and informal institutional aspects surrounding all human interactions, whether these interactions take place within stable structures of legal rules and social norms or whether they attempt to change the said rules and norms. Finally, the paper shows that it is possible for old institutionalists to make institutional individualist analyses of institutional changes while retaining the remaining methodological assumptions of the school. The same is true for new institutionalists. Some examples are offered from both camps. Copyright 2001 by Oxford University Press.

Despite recent advances, economic methodology has found it difficult to transcend certain positivist premisses and concerns. We argue that developments in philosophy and social theory under the heading of critical realism are particularly significant with respect to overcoming these problems. To illustrate, we focus upon various themes that arise in a recent collection concerned with economic methodology and institutionalist economics, relating these themes to relevant aspects of this realist position. In so doing, we argue that an economic methodology restricted to description and an institutionalism committed to some form of methodological individualism are not only unnecessary but problematic.

A new phenomenon, a self-designated school of analytical Marxism, centred in particular around the work of John Roemer, Jon Elster and G.A. Cohen. Analytical Marxism begins with the unsupported premise of methodological individualism. In Marxs methodological holism, investigation of structural limits to individual actions is precisely the result of considering the whole first. This chapter briefly discusses Marx's possibility theory of crisis. Marx has noted that, there would be no crisis without the inner unity of factors that are apparently indifferent to each other. The chapter demonstrates the importance of considering the whole explicitly, and conducts a holistic thought-experiment which represents capitalism as a relationship between one capitalist and his wage-labourers. In the rgime of One Capital, it is assumed that, in order to secure a given increase in surplus-value, the rational capitalist initiates a given increase in the technical composition of capital.Keywords: analytical Marxism; capitalism; G.A. Cohen; holistic thought-experiment; John Roemer; Jon Elster; Marxian theory of crisis; methodological individualism; regime of One Capital

Methodological individualism has become a more fashionable slogan for economistsin recent years. In specific terms we are being urged to accept a doctrine within whichall explanations of social phenomena have to be couched in terms of statements aboutindividuals. However, the term has a wide and sometimes ambiguous usage and is beingemployed as a packaging for all kinds of methodological and theoretical prescriptions. Forexample, it has been regarded as a commandment that thou shalt, where possible, placemacroeconomic statements on firm microeconomic foundations (e.g. Blaug, 1980), or aninjunction against (reckless) aggregation, particularly in regard to welfare criteria orsocial welfare functions (e.g. Kirzner 1980; Littlechild, 1978), or as an inspiration forrecent theoretical developments in economics with pro-market policy conclusions (e.g.Furubotn and Pejovich, 1974).One of the further problems in discussing this topic is that often the term 'methodo-logical individualism' carries an ideological charge. Indeed, by both advocates and itsopponents it is too frequently confused with individualism of a political variety. However,the connection between political and methodological individualism is merely assumed bythese supporters or critics, or supported by cursory argument. It is never demonstratedwith any rigour.Although there is a lack of uniformity in the use of the label, it is argued here that the keyelement in the classic statements of methodological individualism is a refusal to examinethe institutional or other forces which are involved in the moulding of individual pref-erences and purposes. We are thus confronted with a remarkable optimism about thepossibility of explanation of social phenomena in terms of individuals, but an extremereluctance to give even partial explanations of individual behaviour in social or evenpsychological terms. This refusal is both dogmatic and, as will be argued below, unaccept-able on analytical grounds.This reduction of explanation and thereby causality solely to individuals has a furtherimplication: the explanation of social phenomena proceeds, even by a circuitous route