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This textbook serves as an introduction to the rising field of complexity economics. In thirteen chapters, it provides a comprehensive and systematic overview of the concepts and methods of complexity economics and their applications to economic issues. The book explains that the complexity approach is not just another method, but a worldview that is different from the one of academics with neoclassical training. By contrasting complexity economics with neoclassical economics, the readers are induced to reflect on their own unconscious beliefs about the economic world and develop their own approach to dealing with the pervasive complexities and uncertainties of reality. The first five chapters serve as an introduction and overview. Chapters 6 - 12 present the core concepts of the book. Each of the seven chapters introduces a key concept of complexity and provides applications to economics topics. The final chapter discusses the implications of complexity thinking for economic policy and for the future development of economics.This textbook addresses advanced undergraduate students and graduate students of economics, interested in a better understanding of the concepts and the way of thinking in complexity economics, as well as in acquiring a sound technical foundation to understand most of the research literature.

This book,'The Economy of Goodness'by Dr. Rey-Sheng Her, offers a comprehensive faith-based and philosophical perspective on economic activities throughout human history. It explores how cross-cultural ethics and philosophies, particularly Eastern and Western, shape our economy. The book delves into applying altruism to economic spheres, demonstrating how good motivations and means lead to good outcomes. Key themes include defining'goodness'as altruism, harmony, and common goodness, and addressing fairness and justice in production, consumption, trade, and finance. Highlighting enterprises that embody these ideals, the book also presents ten principles for fostering altruistic business practices, aiming to guide society toward common wealth and goodness. This engaging and insightful work is essential for those interested in economics, ethics, and the philosophy of altruism.

Love is fundamental to the flourishing of society and nature. However, the competition of the market economy has resulted in a fractured and traumatized modern world. Revisiting philosophical developments and countercultures since the Enlightenment, this book offers a ‘loving critique'. It shows how learning to love better is the key to releasing ourselves from the alienating grip of the market. The utopian template presented draws on archaeology, the witch trials, hippies, Hinduism, Buddhism, quantum mechanics and psychedelics to describe how we can build a more loving society that can survive and flourish through the ecological, ethical, economic and existential crises that we all now face.

This book focuses on understanding the thinking of one of the greatest economists of the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes (JMK), stressing the evolution of his thinking from adherence to the classic Quantity Theory of Money to the development of his own novel theories of unemployment, stagnation and instability in modern capitalism and the need to have active policies to combat these malaises.The author dissects Keynes's three main analytical works that shaped his thinking and policy recommendations: A Tract on Monetary Reform (1923); A Treatise on Money (1930); and The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). Thia book undertakes a direct analysis of the texts of each of these three books themselves, rather than drawing on secondary literature studying what Keynes “wanted to say” according to other authors sympathetic or unsympathetic with Keynes's ideas. It is an ideal text for a reader who wants to know in clear terms the thought of JMK and the historical context in which it evolved and developed.This book will be of significant interest to scholars, students and social researchers in various fields who are often surrounded by excessively technically oriented books about Keynes that often omit the history of ideas.

This book analyzes contemporary critiques of political economy and highlights the challenges to rethinking contemporary discourses and practices. It carries out a multipronged critical and transformative dialogue involving political economy, moral economy, moral sociology, moral anthropology, and spiritual ecology. The authors discuss diverse themes such as the relationship between consciousness and society, the dialogue between Karl Marx and Carl Gustav Jung, a critical sociology of morality and property relations, moral and political economy of the Indigenous peoples and a critique of modern civilization, economic evaluation, as well as alternative traditions of thinking in Marx, Thoreau, Gandhi, J.C. Kumarappa, Rammanohar Lohia, B.R. Ambedkar and Jayaprakash Narain. A unique transdisciplinary text, the book brings together authors and approaches from both the Global North and South. It will be indispensable to students, research scholars and teachers of humanities and social sciences in such fields as economics, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies and development studies.

This book is an unprecedented consideration of the challenges of what we can do for generations yet to come. Many growing intergenerational conflicts of interest, such as climate change and fiscal sustainability, are the result of the historically new progress of increasing human power, and the resolution of those conflicts demands a new intergenerational ethic. The book offers fresh new ideas for resolving intergenerational conflicts through the exploration of an entirely new field, conceptualized in philosophy, developed in economics, and tested in experiments. In　particular, this work develops the theory of intergenerational cooperation based on a new relationship of direct reciprocity between generations. From experimental results, the possibility of intergenerational cooperation through Kantian categorical imperative is shown. The book also examines the effectiveness of inviting representatives of future generations, which are called'imaginary future generations', into the deliberations for current policy decisions. The original Japanese edition of this book was awarded the 66th Nikkei Prize for Excellent Books in Economic Science. The prize was established in 1958 to contribute to the advancement of academics and knowledge in the fields of economics, management, and accounting, as well as to its general dissemination and application.

This book engages with a radical critique of the modern state and the contemporary economic order: Alasdair MacIntyre's ‘revolutionary Aristotelianism'project. Central to this critique is the idea that the moral norms that markets and states tend to reproduce or reinforce are an obstacle to the development of practical judgement. The book outlines MacIntyre's theory of practical reason and discusses some of the institutional arrangements that can be derived from it. It also explores the growing body of literature which has started to examine the extent to which alternative forms of social organisation might be more compatible with MacIntyre's account of the virtues. This literature includes various proposals for alternative political and economic arrangements, ranging from certain forms of market socialism to the promotion of different forms of mutual and cooperative enterprises. Finally, the book offers an account of the type of institutional analysis required for the advancement of the revolutionary Aristotelianism project. This is achieved by showing how some key features of the Bloomington School of political economy are not only compatible with MacIntyre's political philosophy, but also that a synthesis between neo- Aristotelian moral philosophy and the work of the Bloomington School offers a robust alternative for revolutionary Aristotelians. Thus, the book defends the idea that MacIntyre's account of human flourishing is more likely to be realised, although imperfectly, in a polycentric social order. This book will be of interest to social scientists working in questions of political economy as well as political and moral philosophers.

In Economics Imperialism and Interdisciplinarity: Before the Watershed, Ben Fine offers a selection of his key articles charting the rise of economics imperialism. Each article is accompanied by a preamble that sets the context in which it appeared, with an overall introduction drawing out the overall significance for contemporary scholarship. Ranging over mainstream and heterodox economics, the disputes between them, the relationship between economics and other disciplines, and thinkers as diverse as Kuhn, Becker and Bourdieu, the collection offers a unique and compelling account of how mainstream economics has both changed dramatically whilst its core and narrow principles have remained as sacrosanct as they are invalid. The volume is imperative for those engaging in political economy across the social sciences.

In Economics Imperialism and Interdisciplinarity: The Watershed and After, Ben Fine selects and adds to his key articles tracking economics imperialism through three phases, focusing on the last decade of the third phase – anything goes as with freakonomics. Each article is accompanied by a preamble setting the context in which it appeared, with a new overall introduction and literature survey drawing out the overall significance for contemporary scholarship.Ranging over mainstream and heterodox economics, the disputes between them, the relationship between economics and other disciplines, and authors such as Lazear, Stiglitz and Akerlof, the accelerating presence of economics imperialism is documented alongside its perverse, critical neglect. The volume is imperative for those engaging in political economy across the social sciences.

A detailed analysis of oikonomia, an underexplored branch of knowledge in ancient Greek philosophy. In this book, Étienne Helmer offers a comprehensive analysis of oikonomia in ancient Greek philosophy. Despite its similarity to the word “economy,” for the ancients, oikonomia named a branch of knowledge—the science of management—that was aimed at studying the practices we engage in to satisfy our needs. This began with the domestic sphere, but it radiated outward from the oikos (house) to encompass broader issues in the polis (city) as well. Helmer explores topics such as gender roles and marriage, property and the household, the acquisition and preservation of material goods, and how Greek philosophers addressed the issue of slavery in the ancient world. Even if we are not likely to share many of ancient thinkers'beliefs today, Helmer shows that there was once a way of thinking of “economic life” that went beyond the mere accumulation of wealth, representing a key point of departure for understanding how to inhabit the world with others.

This book delves into the doctrine of separate spheres within the history of economic thought. The concept of separate spheres emerged in philosophy and has consistently been incorporated by various disciplines. This book stands as the first comprehensive exploration of how this doctrine was embraced, adapted, and contested by economists engaged in gender issues and marriage theory. Spanning the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, it illuminates the evolution of the drive for gender equality—rooted primarily in the tradition of classical liberalism—across the landscape of economic ideas and theories. This book is a valuable resource for scholars and researchers interested in the intricate history of the interconnections among between economic thought, feminism, gender studies, and cultural studies.

Aristotle's Economics is a thoughtful and comprehensive account of Aristotle's intellectual system. Drawing upon all of his surviving writings, this book deftly illustrates how Aristotle considered economics to be just one of many areas which make up the social and political whole.David Reisman offers an in-depth and accessible analysis of Aristotle's theories, adeptly comparing them to the work of his contemporaries. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this book demonstrates how Aristotle embedded his economics in a wider synthesis that extends from scientific method to ethics, law and the spectrum of constitutions. Aristotle's economics cannot be separated from his ideas on the good society, the pragmatic state and the sensible guidance of far-sighted intellectuals. Aristotle's Economics shows that Aristotle put morals before things. His lasting message was that material goods should only be seen as the means to a fruitful and varied life rather than as life's end and goal.This thought-provoking study will be of interest to students, academics and researchers in economic thought and political economy. Aristotle linked his economics to political and social theory. This book will appeal to readers who believe that the answers to many of our present-day problems lie in the history of ideas and the work of Plato's most distinguished disciple.

Modern institutional economics was created to study the institutions of pre-digital economies and is based on reductionist approaches. But digital capitalism is producing institutions of unprecedented complexity. This book argues, therefore, that not only the economic institutions themselves but also the theoretical foundations for studying those institutions must now be adapted to digital capitalism. The book focuses on the institutional complexity of digital capitalism, developing an interdisciplinary framework which brings together cutting-edge theoretical approaches from philosophy (first of all, object-oriented ontology), sociology (especially actor–network theory), evolutionary biology, and cognitive science. In particular, the book outlines a new approach to the study of institutional evolution, based on extended evolutionary synthesis – a new paradigm in evolutionary biology, which is now replacing neo-Darwinism. The book develops an enactivist notion of extended cognition and cognitive institutions, rejecting the individualistic and mechanistic understanding of economic rationality in digital environments. The author experiments with new philosophical approaches to investigate institutional complexity, for example, the ideas of the flat ontology and the assemblage theory. The flat ontology approach is applied to the study of human–robot institutions, as well as to thinking about post-anthropocentric institutional design. Assemblage thinking allows for a new (much less idealistic) look at blockchain and smart cities. Blockchain as digital institutional technology is considered in the book not from the viewpoint of minimizing transaction costs (as is customary in the modern institutional economics), but by using the theory of transaction value which focuses on improving the quality of digital transactions. The book includes a wide range of examples ranging from metaverses, cryptocurrencies, and big data to robot rules, smart contracts, and machine learning algorithms. Written for researchers in institutional economics and other social sciences, this interdisciplinary book is essential reading for anyone interested in the interplay of institutional and digital change.

This book provides an insightful and original perspective on the work and legacy of John Maynard Keynes. It explores his work as an economist, world system planner, and social philosopher to highlight the different ways he influenced economics, economic policy, and the global political economy. Particularly attention is given to the development of the ideas which led up to The General Theory, his role as a planner and negotiator within international organizations, his work on the development of the post-war UK system, his debates with British Economists. This book examines the work and international legacy of one of economics'defining thinkers. It will be of interest to students and researchers interested in the political economy and the history of economic thought.

Liberalism holds that individual freedom can be realized under capitalism. “Classical liberalism” tends to focus on excessive state interference as the primary threat to freedom. More recent theorists, however, recognize that capitalism, left to itself, would be characterized by mass social ills and argue that state intervention is necessary to guarantee individual freedom.This book is a Marxist critique of liberalism. Prabhat Patnaik demonstrates that liberalism and Marxism provide vastly differing accounts of individual freedom and the forces that restrict it. In the Marxist view, people, contrary to appearances, lack real agency under capitalism. Competition coerces individuals to act according to the impersonal logic of capitalism, making them mere instruments of the system. In this way, capitalism creates universal alienation, and true individual freedom is possible only through overcoming it.Patnaik argues that socialism can secure individual agency in both economic and political spheres, though actually existing socialism has failed in this respect. He also considers what a socialist society should look like: not a planned economy but a highly decentralized system in which citizens are directly involved in taking decisions affecting their lives and enjoy fundamental economic rights as well as political ones. Readable yet rigorous, Beyond Liberalism brings together political philosophy and political economy to offer a renewed vision of socialism.

Drawing on phenomenological and realist approaches, this book surveys the theoretical evolution of new institutional economics.For all its popularity and explanatory power, new institutional economics is not a homogenous field but encompasses a range of different theoretical approaches starting from Coase and the introduction of transaction costs. In particular, the concept of rationality is a rich source of dispute leading to a bifurcation between ‘insider'and ‘outsider'perspectives. The insider view refers to studying conscious human beings – the economic actor – who seek their self-interest and find themselves in their mundane situation. The self-interest of the economic actor bestows him with logic. It makes the logic of the situation the method of economics, as Karl Popper establishes. Thus, the book argues for the positioning of new institutional economics as situational logic, that is, an economic theory that formulates and studies single-exit situations that face the economic actor. Ultimately, this book presents a critical appraisal of new institutional economics theories based on a substantiated methodological perspective that effectively navigates the theorist between realism and rigor.This book will be of interest to readers of new institutional economics, economic theory, and the philosophy of economics and social sciences.

This book provides historical, theoretical, and biographical perspectives on two giants of contemporary economics, Jacques Rueff (1896-1978) and John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). The former French bureaucrat and academician championed classical economics; the latter British economist founded macro-economics criticizing the classical school. Depending upon archival sources, including personal correspondences between the above two figures, the book describes furious debates between them and surrounding them.In fact, the two economists proposed contrasting diagnosis over almost every event in contemporary world economy: the reparations problem, the Great Depression, the gold exchange standard, and the Bretton Wood System. Keynes appraised managed currency to cope with unemployment, criticizing the classical gold standard; Rueff believed the function of market mechanism, blaming the state intervention. The book highlights deep influence of Rueff, rather largerthan Keynes, in Europe before and after WWII.The perspective of the book reaches today's economic issues. The classical view of Rueff was shared in Mont Pelerin Society, a cradle of neo-liberalism. Rueff's market-friendly view paved way to the neo-liberal reforms which took place after the 1980s. The classical market theory of Rueff, together with dialogues with the labor unions, prepared the social background of the European Union. This book thus reveals the truth of liberal economy, from the 20th to 21st centuries.

The central theme in the work of F.A. Hayek was the problem of order in society, and his focus was epistemological: he was concerned with the constraints on knowledge, the problems associated with its distribution, the structures in which it inheres, and the implications of these issues for the understanding of social phenomena generally. But while his work has greatly improved our understanding of market processes, application to more complex social arrangements was not an unambiguous success.In seeking to progress beyond Hayek's difficulties in formulating a more general theory of spontaneous order, this book fleshes out an analogy between social orders and the biological order detailed in Hayek's The Sensory Order into a theory of adaptive systems. It focuses first on those aspects of the systems which enable them to learn about their environments, and then on the entrepreneurial processes which implement their anticipatory capabilities. The inclusion of anticipatory elements, inspired by the work of Robert Rosen, results in a theory of social orders which integrates many of the disparate findings of Austrian economists into a self-consistent conceptual framework and has applicability to other social arrangements such as firms and governments. Of particular interest is the interaction between the systems of science and government, an issue of significant current concern which is comprehensively explored here both theoretically and empirically.This book is essential reading for anyone interested in Hayek, Austrian economics, social theory, and the history of economic thought more broadly.

An Economic Philosophy of Production, Work and Consumption presents a new transhistorical framework of defining production, work and consumption. It shows that they all share the common feature of intentional physical transformation of something external to the agent, at some point in time.The book opens with a discussion of various theoretical traditions within economics, spanning mainstream and heterodox perspectives, and problems with production definitions in use today. Next, the author outlines various definitions in a more formal manner and provides a discussion on measurement and the production boundary. Unproductive work is redefined as socially reproductive, i.e. such that would not be performed on a Robinson Crusoe Island. Finally, the volume applies the new conceptual framework to various historical cases and discusses the future of production, work and consumption.This essential volume will be of interest to scholars of economic philosophy and methodology, the history of economic thought, economic history and national accounting.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

The Coding Revolution—a combination of the Digital Revolution and genetic engineering—has had a destructive effect on society. It has created a platform for extreme views that is loosening our economic, cultural, and political moorings. This book provides a systematic approach to policy and management to promote societal collaboration and unity. It describes the changes caused by the Digital Age, including the Internet, Artificial Intelligence, and various other technologies. The author then offers a new framework, Religious Humanism, which incorporates covenants of the Bible, the US Constitution and other sources of wisdom to foster collaboration and create a revitalized and inclusive global society. Narrative and analytical tools are offered as well as case examples.

2023 marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Adam Smith. Long known as the'father of economics', Smith also produced moral and political writings which have increasingly come to be recognised as major contributions to the Scottish, and indeed wider European, Enlightenment. In this collection of original essays, leading Smith scholars offer fresh perspectives on how to think about Smith's ideas, the nature and importance of his works, and their impact upon subsequent thinkers and ultimately the world we live in. Bringing together both leading experts and some of the most exciting new voices in the field, this collection seeks both to celebrate and deepen our appreciation of what Adam Smith has to teach us.

Henry George (1839–1897) rose to fame as a social reformer and economist amid the industrial and intellectual turbulence of the late nineteenth century. His best-selling Progress and Poverty (1879) captures the ravages of privileged monopolies and the woes of industrialization in a language of eloquent indignation. His reform agenda resonates as powerfully today as it did in the Gilded Age, and his impassioned prose and compelling thought inspired such diverse figures as Leo Tolstoy, John Dewey, Sun Yat-Sen, Winston Churchill, and Albert Einstein. This six-volume collection of The Annotated Works of Henry George assembles all his major works for the first time with new introductions, critical annotations, extensive bibliographical material, and comprehensive indexing to provide a wealth of resources for scholars and reformers. Volume VI of this series presents A Perplexed Philosopher (1892), Henry George's devastating critique of Herbert Spencer's changing views on the “land question” after Spencer achieved fame as the author of the “Synthetic Philosophy.” Social Statics (1850), Spencer's first major work, affirms an equal right of all to the use of the earth. By the early 1890s, Spencer had recanted this view in Justice (1891) and an abridged version of Social Statics (1892). This betrayal of principle by Spencer provoked George to write A Perplexed Philosopher. In this volume, George's original text is supplemented by critical annotations and an extensive topical bibliography. A cumulative index covers all six volumes in the series.The introductory essay, “Social Evolution and Moral Sophistry,” by Dr. Joseph Milne provides the cultural and philosophical context for George's critical analysis of Spencer's tortuous abandonment of the principle of equal freedom with respect to its application to the use of nature and the furtherance of equal opportunity for all. In A Perplexed Philosopher, George employs his considerable logical acumen to reveal Spencer's multiple inconsistencies and confusions when it comes to the land question. Spencer did not respond in a systematic fashion to George's critique. Henry George wrote A Perplexed Philosopher to correct the many confusions about the land question by a major nineteenth-century philosopher. In doing so, he made a significant contribution to such topics as the issue of compensation, when a wrongful entitlement is taken away from a privilege-holder, and the tendency towards materialistic positivism. A Perplexed Philosopher reveals fundamental differences between George's philosophical outlook and other prevailing views in the nineteenth century. A Perplexed Philosopher is not only a major contribution to nineteenth-century scholarship with regard to the relation between humanity and nature, but it also illuminates a stark contrast between George's animating philosophy of equitable reform and Spencer's philosophy of the status quo.

A sweeping intellectual history of the concept of economic scarcity—its development across five hundred years of European thought and its decisive role in fostering the climate crisis.Modern economics presumes a particular view of scarcity, in which human beings are innately possessed of infinite desires and society must therefore facilitate endless growth and consumption irrespective of nature's limits. Yet as Fredrik Albritton Jonsson and Carl Wennerlind show, this vision of scarcity is historically novel and was not inevitable even in the age of capitalism. Rather, it reflects the costly triumph of infinite-growth ideologies across centuries of European economic thought—at the expense of traditions that sought to live within nature's constraints.The dominant conception of scarcity today holds that, rather than master our desires, humans must master nature to meet those desires. Albritton Jonsson and Wennerlind argue that this idea was developed by thinkers such as Francis Bacon, Samuel Hartlib, Alfred Marshall, and Paul Samuelson, who laid the groundwork for today's hegemonic politics of growth. Yet proponents of infinite growth have long faced resistance from agrarian radicals, romantic poets, revolutionary socialists, ecofeminists, and others. These critics—including the likes of Gerrard Winstanley, Dorothy Wordsworth, Karl Marx, and Hannah Arendt—embraced conceptions of scarcity in which our desires, rather than nature, must be mastered to achieve the social good. In so doing, they dramatically reenvisioned how humans might interact with both nature and the economy.Following these conflicts into the twenty-first century, Albritton Jonsson and Wennerlind insist that we need new, sustainable models of economic thinking to address the climate crisis. Scarcity is not only a critique of infinite growth, but also a timely invitation to imagine alternative ways of flourishing on Earth.

Drawing on recent work in the contemporary philosophy of economics, this book presents new ideas on liberalism, including the concept of ‘growth-oriented liberalism'.Since the end of the Cold War, questions and definitions of liberalism have moved from the sphere of political systems (the socialism versus liberalism debates) to the sphere of ethics (what it means to live in a liberal society). The chapters in this work trace the trajectory of the concept of liberalism in the philosophy of economics by exploring the ideological implications of the methodological debate between socialism and liberalism, the idea of liberty as real freedom, the ethical implications of Max Weber's methodology on autonomy and liberty, and new typological theories of ideologies in the context of contemporary economic ethics.This book marks a significant contribution to the literature on liberalism in the philosophy of economics and economic methodology, and is highly recommended for readers who seek updated ideas on liberal society in its ethical and philosophical contexts.

In Cliometrics as Economics Imperialism, Ben Fine traces the cliometric revolution, from before its emergence through three phases of the new, the newer and the newest economic history. These phases are shown to correspond to those of “economics imperialism”, the colonisation of topics and fields by mainstream economics, moving successively through as if there were perfectly working markets, as if imperfectly working markets, and these combined plus arbitrary inclusion of other variables. The text draws upon case studies, for example of the putative eighteenth-century consumer revolution, Douglass North, path dependence, and the British coal industry, and through exposing the reduction of economic theory and economic history deployed within them and giving rise to a corresponding reduction in the presence of the social, the historical and political economy.

In Hoodie Economics, Jack Manning Bancroft builds a values system revolution that centres a relational economy, offering urgent and transformative solutions to embrace Indigenous thinking and ideas from outside the margins and pushing the focus from capitalism to relationships – from the people in suits to the people in hoodies. Economics is what we value, and in that way, economics is for everyone. But modern financial empires have shut out the many to instead prioritise ‘limitless'market growth, attention economies and stock profits for the very few. We have been denied our sense of agency and taught to focus on the self above all, and the biggest stock that is down is our relationships – both with each other and with nature. But we have the powerful tools of imagination and exchange that will allow us to reshape economics for everyone. Hoodie Economics draws on alternative intelligence sources to look at the patterns of money, ownership and reductive thinking that we have inherited, and how we have the potential to create a new (old) foundation of equality – relational economies instead of transactional ones, and networks that are truly social. Just as Jack Manning Bancroft sets out to reimagine economics, Hoodie Economics rethinks the economics book, inviting all readers to find their own way through its narratives and to feel energised by its ideas. In increasingly anxious and tumultuous times, this book offers a mind-expanding economic philosophy that centres unlikely connections, knowledge sharing, custodianship and joy.

This book, the second of two volumes, explores the impact of Jesús Huerta de Soto and his role in the modern revival of the Austrian School of Economics. Through chapters discussing philosophy and political economy, the nature of capitalism and the foundations of economics are examined in relation to Austrian economics. These ideas and the work of Huerta de Soto are also contextualized within the broader history of economic thought to provide insight into their influence and development.This book highlights and builds upon the intellectual legacy of Jesús Huerta de Soto through its contribution to the Austrian School of Economics. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in Austrian economics, philosophy, and political economy.

EPUB and EPDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Economic theory relies heavily on the idea of rational action, but how are we to understand the empirical content of rational choice when we can only observe the outcome, not what goes into making the choice? With contributions from Alan Kirman and Rod O'Donnell, Karl Mittermaier's posthumously published work establishes a new conceptual framework that will enable economic theorists to forge new paths of empirical analysis. Introducing readers to the work of a profound thinker who was not recognized in his lifetime, this book, featuring previously unpublished material, is poised to become a seminal text in the philosophy of social sciences.

This open access book presents an alternative to capitalism and state socialism through the modelling of a post-market and post-state utopia based on an upscaling of the commons, feminist political economy and democratic and council-based planning approaches. It discusses the left's need to explore non-capitalist modes of production, the inability of green or socialist market economies to produce real social and ecological change, and the need to look beyond traditional ideas of reform and revolution. The book discusses how a socio-economic organisation beyond money, wage labour, patriarchal division of work and centralised state planning may look like. It develops an approach to societal transformation based on seed forms of commons practices and social movements. This book will be relevant to activists, students and researchers interested in fundamental social change, political economy and feminist and Marxist economics.This is an open access book.

This volume seeks to restore Vilfredo Pareto to his rightful place in the history of social and economic thought, bringing together studies by leading scholars to mark the centenary of his death in 1923. Assessing Pareto's many contributions to the social sciences and his unique integration of the disciplines of sociology, politics, and economics, it addresses the relative neglect of Pareto's work and explores both his continuing relevance to social research and the influence of his thought on subsequent developments in sociology and social theory. As such it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in the history of sociology and the importance of Pareto's thought.

Plus qu'aucun autre mouvement de pensée et d'action, le surréalisme s'est voulu le fossoyeur de l'occident capitaliste et guerrier. À sa légitime défense devant l'Innommable a répondu dialectiquement la nécessité de redorer à neuf le langage asservi de l'usage en le rechargeant aux sources vives du rêve et de l'inconscient, mis à disposition de tous et vecteurs de poésie objective par la pratique systématisée du message automatique, coup d'envoi et fil conducteur de sa Révolution. Claude Maillard-Chary en explicite la teneur et l'actualité, à rebours des avancées délétères de l'Anthropocène mais en correspondance avec le « Qui vive? » d'André Breton ralliant les intervenants de l'Arche reconstruite, humains, non-humains, le merveilleux légendaire inclus, dans le périmètre sensible d'un écosystème relationnel de longue portée.

Porosity between Politics and the Economy addresses the relationships between politics and the economy in deeply original ways. It is a book motivated by a sense of urgency aroused by both the failure of modern capitalism and the environmental crisis. Egidius Berns argues that the relations between politics and the economy are porous, and he investigates the consequences of this porosity. By mapping out of a number of conceptual fault lines that underpin the weaknesses of post-industrial capitalist societies, Berns provides a fresh look at the current crisis of open societies.But the book also preliminarily points to a path to reforming the relations between the economy and politics. By analyzing the web of conceptual connections that will continue to inform any possible configuration between them, it finds a way into a future characterized by a certain ethics that combines restraint and combativeness.”

This is not a work of sociology; it is not based on polling of people's changing views; it is not a sub-Hayekian/Rawlsian analysis of the constitution; it is not a relation of the extended Marxist family; and it does not apply evolutionary perspectives. It has a Christian, often a Judeo-Christian, refrain but it is not harking back to a different era. It values the judgements and experience of the man and woman in the streets where most struggling households live; the role of ‘experts'is considered alongside these. The issue of terminating life prematurely is emphasised as a profound moral consideration, which economic considerations alone cannot resolve, and is prior to consideration of the quality of our lives, fairness and redistribution. It is a plea for simplicity so that the ordinary citizen can comprehend proposals, an important form of fairness. It flows from a fundamental objection to the unfairness of the prevailing political economic Zeitgeist of globalisation, a policy fully supported by the governing elites throughout Britain, the rest of Europe, and the United States. This policy has consciously increased inequality to the benefit of the elites and justified this by the purported benefits for all classes in society. The objections of the lesser-educated, lower-earning, under-skilled workers have been discounted as arising from ‘populism', which often seems to mean holding uneducated, prejudiced and intemperate opinions, a ‘racist'nationalism, and a lack of appreciation of the benefits of globalisation for all including those non-compliant. This further corrodes relations with our political government which have become permeated by a profound distrust, one product of which was the Brexit breakout that the ruling groups attempted to thwart at great cost to their democratic legitimacy. UK citizens perceive ambiguity and dissembling as systematic and deliberate misrepresentation. Party politicians routinely mislead for party advantage, clothed in the rhetoric of beneficence and a more generous offering than the other parties. This fiscal dishonesty follows from their priority for the most effective presentation of vote-winning promises, rather than responsible policies, which have slipped the mooring of transparently balanced budgets. It cannot be readily fitted into the Left Wing or Right Wing categories that assist academic and commentariat simplifications.

Omniconomics shows how we can make human society intrinsically sustainable, harmonically embedded in nature, with the help of a completely new approach in which traditional economics is transformed.Citing the fallacies of existing economic approaches as directly responsible for many of the environmental and social threats faced by society today, Niko Roorda presents a new, interdisciplinary science: omniconomics. This framework has its foundations in an innovative, joined-up approach, in which all aspects of the natural and social sciences are inextricably linked. It will better allow for new solutions to tackling urgent issues, including climate change, deforestation, environmental and economic inequality, dehumanization, and crumbling social cohesion.Inspiring new thinking, this book aims to: Inspire a public, scientific and political debate about the role of present-day economics, its status as no more than a protoscience, and the consequences for (inter)national policies and developments Stimulate independent, out-of-the-box thinking of students, graduates, politicians, leaders of society, and any member of the public who worries about the major present-day problems and the future Stimulate interdisciplinary research within universities towards the creation of an omniconomic science that will replace the discipline of economics and will become a genuine, mature science Challenge the readers to go beyond short- or middle-to-long term solutions such as the Sustainable Development Goals and circular economy: Omniconomics starts where Doughnut economics ends Encouraging the reader to rethink accepted economic approaches to deal with the present-day threats of global catastrophes, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainable development, sustainability economics and policies, as well as any practitioners working in related fields.

While Adorno has tended to be read as a critic of the administered world and the consumer industry rather than a Marxist, Adorno and Marx establishes Adorno's negative dialectics as fundamental for understanding Marx's critique of political economy. This conception of the critique of political economy as a critical theory marks both a radical departure from traditional Marxist scholarship and from traditional readings of Adorno's work and warns against identifying Adorno with Marx or Marx with Adorno. Rather, it highlights the intersection between Adorno's critical theory and Marx's critique of political economy that produces a critical theory of economic objectivity that moves beyond Marxian economics and Adornonian social theory. Adorno and Marx offers an ingenious account of critical social theory. Its subversion of the economic categories of political economy contributes to the cutting-edge of contemporary social theory and its critique of social practice.

This volume uses historical epistemology in order to address several topics in the history of economic thought, with special emphasis on ecological economics, environmental metaphors of scarcity, and mathematical ecology. Using the field of ecological economics as an anchor point, the author reflects on the styles of reasoning in economics with a view towards understanding the nature of disagreement that stems from a failure of communication between rival approaches in economics. A thorough inquiry into issues related to identity, coherence, pluralism, and reception, this volume will appeal to researchers and students interested in history of economic thought, ecological economics, and philosophy of the sciences.

This work details the theological sources and moral significance of the life and work of the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790).The panel of contributors deepens our understanding of Adam Smith in his religious and theological context and the significance of this understanding for contemporary moral, economic, and political challenges to modern social life. The chapters cover a broad range of disciplinary and historical concerns, from Smith's view of providence and his famous'invisible hand'to the role of self-interest and benevolence in Smith's social and economic thought. A better appreciation for the moral and theological dimensions of Smith's thought provides not only a better understanding of Smith's own context and significance in the Scottish Enlightenment but also promises to assist in meeting the perennial challenges of properly connecting economic realities to moral responsibility.The book is of interest to advanced students and scholars of the history of economic thought, historical and moral theology, intellectual history, political science, and philosophy.

The most fundamental questions of economics are often philosophical in nature, and philosophers have, since the very beginning of Western philosophy, asked many questions that current observers would identify as economic. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Economics is an outstanding reference source for the key topics, problems, and debates at the intersection of philosophical and economic inquiry. It captures this field of countless exciting interconnections, affinities, and opportunities for cross-fertilization. Comprising 35 chapters by a diverse team of contributors from all over the globe, the Handbook is divided into eight sections: I. RationalityII. Cooperation and InteractionIII. MethodologyIV. ValuesV. Causality and ExplanationVI. Experimentation and SimulationVII. EvidenceVIII. Policy The volume is essential reading for students and researchers in economics and philosophy who are interested in exploring the interconnections between the two disciplines. It is also a valuable resource for those in related fields like political science, sociology, and the humanities.

David Ricardo has been acclaimed – or vilified – for merits he would never have dreamt of, or sins for which he was entirely innocent. Entrenched mythology labels him as a utilitarian economist, an enemy of the working class, an impractical theorist, a scientist with ‘no philosophy at all'and the author of a formalist methodological revolution. Exploring a middle ground between theory and biography, this book explores the formative intellectual encounters of a man who came to economic studies via other experiences, thus bridging the gap between the historical Ricardo and the economist's Ricardo.The chapters undertake a thorough analysis of Ricardo's writings in their context, asking who was speaking, what audience was being addressed, with what communicative intentions, using what kind of lexicon and communicative conventions, and starting with what shared knowledge. The work opens in presenting the different religious communities with which Ricardo was in touch. It goes on to describe his education in the leading science of the time – geology – before he turned to the study of political economy. Another chapter discusses five ‘philosophers'– students of logic, ethics and politics – with whom he was in touch. From correspondence, manuscripts and publications, the closing chapters reconstruct, firstly, Ricardo's ideas on scientific method, the limits of the'abstract science'and its application, and, secondly, his ideas on ethics and politics and their impact on strategies for improving the condition of the working class. This book sheds new light on Ricardian economics, providing an invaluable service to readers of economic methodology, philosophy of economics, the history of economic thought, political thought and philosophy.

This book offers a comprehensive exploration of the major key concepts common to economics and evolutionary biology. Written by a group of philosophers of science, biologists and economists, it proposes analyses of the meaning of twenty-five concepts from the viewpoint respectively of economics and of evolutionary biology –each followed by a short synthesis emphasizing major discrepancies and commonalities. This analysis is surrounded by chapters exploring the nature of the analogy that connects evolution and economics, and chapters that summarize the major teachings of the analyses of the keywords. Most scholars in biology and in economics know that their science has something in common with the other one, for instance the notions of competition and resources. Textbooks regularly acknowledge that the two fields share some history – Darwin borrowing from Malthus the insistence on scarcity of resources, and then behavioral ecologists adapting and transforming game theory into evolutionary game theory in the 1980s, while Friedman famously alluded to a Darwinian process yielding the extant firms. However, the real extent of the similarities, the reasons why they are so close, and the limits and even the nature of the analogy connecting economics and biological evolution, remain inexplicit. This book proposes basis analyses that can sustain such explication. It is intended for researchers, grad students and master students in evolutionary and in economics, as well as in philosophy of science.

This book provides a concise history of economic thought for readers of all ages. While some basic economics knowledge would be helpful, it is not required. The book sets out to achieve three aims: to be interesting, entertaining, and thought-provoking. While the authors may appear opinionated in certain instances, this is intentionally done in order to alert readers to form their own views. History of ideas does not make the us smarter nor richer, but it can reduce our ignorance and the “banality of evil”—a term Hannah Arendt referred to people who lack self-reflection, “He did his duty...; he not only obeyed orders, he also obeyed the law.”

Mapping Mainstream Economics: Genealogical Foundations of Alternativity seeks to establish a definition of the mainstream economics, and by extension the alternatives to it, by adopting a genealogical approach: tracing the methodological development of the economic mainstream through its ancestry, which allows for a definition of the mainstream that is separate from politically charged categories or gridlocked academic arguments between received schools of thought. The book follows the evolution of the economic mainstream through four major transformations of the discipline: from political to analytical economics, debates around a logical empiricist economics, the consolidation of neoclassical economics, and the recent expansion of the mainstream. For each of these steps, the key point of departure is explored, illustrated through the work of leading authors at the time. Thus, the book draws on recent research from the history of economic thought and debates the crucial role of historic concepts of economics for alternativity in the field. To put the approach into practice, it examines the relation between today's mainstream economics and two of its alternatives: ecological economics and degrowth. Finally, the book reflects on recent exciting developments in the discourse on alternativity and sheds light on some distant relatives of today's mainstream. This book marks a significant contribution to the literature on the debates around the state and nature of mainstream, alternative, and heterodox economics.

There is controversy among economists over just what it is that economists should do.The controversy is centered on the question whether what is called “neoclassical” or “mainstream” economics provides the appropriate template for performing economic analysis. Neoclassical economics is based on the principle that economic behavior is guided by “rational choice,” i.e., choice based on reason rather than sentiment.Challenges to this principle come from several fields of study: behavioral economics, neuroeconomics, Austrian economics, Keynesian economics, and others. A common thread running through these fields is that the rational choice assumption is unrealistic and therefore not useful for analyzing economic policy choices.It is important, however, to distinguish between economic policy choices, which are frequently irrational, and how individuals are observed to react to these choices. Examples of irrational policy choices are minimum wage laws, buy-American rules, and corporate tax increases. The job of the economist is to play a role akin to that of preachers, in exposing such choices for their irrationality. Mainstream economics shows that people react to these choices in a manner that impairs the performance of the economy.

Une superstition s'attache à l'argent. Est-il une réalité générale? On se demande si l'argent est une réalité générale ou : y a-t-il seulement des monnaies et des aspects particuliers de l'argent? On tend souvent à présenter la société comme un ensemble de strates. L'économie constitue-t-elle une couche d'une société constituée en strates? Est-elle la base de la société? L'auteure de cet ouvrage n'est pas économiste. Les idées soutenues ici se sont imposées à elle à la suite d'expériences pédagogiques et personnelles. Il s'adresse à tout lecteur capable d'en tirer profit.

Our socio–economic innovation ecosystem is riddled with ever-increasing complexity, as we are faced with more frequent and intense shocks, such as COVID-19. Unfortunately, addressing complexity requires a different kind of economic governance. There is increasing pressure on economics to not only going beyond its traditional mainstream boundaries but also to tackle real-world problems, such as fostering structural change, enhancing sustained growth, promoting inclusive development in the era of the digital economy, and boosting green growth, while addressing the divide between the financial sector and the real economy. This book demonstrates how to apply complexity science to economics in an effective and instructive way, in the interest of life-enhancing policies. The book revolves around the non-negligible problem of why economics, to date, seems to be inadequate in guiding economic governance to navigate through real and ever-intensifying complex socio–economic and environmental challenges. With its interdisciplinary approach, the book scans the nuanced nexus between complexity and economics by incorporating, as well as transcending, the state-of-the-art literature. It identifies ways to trigger opportunities for behavioural change in the economic profession with respect to how and what to teach, introducing and developing further complexity economics taking into account the configuration of its main principles and outlining the silhouette of next-generation economic governance. The book deciphers recommendations for economic theory, practice, education and economic governance. It will be of interest to students, scholars, academics, think-tank researchers and economic policy practitioners at the national and/or supranational levels.

The aim of The Legal Foundations of Micro-Institutional Performance is to introduce the reader to a different way of thinking about economics that will allow them to both understand and apply legal concepts to economic analysis. To this end, it adopts and further develops Wesley Hohfeld's legal framework of jural (legal) relations as a tool of analysis. This analytical tool, as built into the Legal-Economic Performance framework, provides specific direction in identifying and describing interdependence among economic agents (including rights, duties, liberties and exposure to various acts).The framework adopted and developed in this book relies on the concept of interdependence--that all economic agents are tied together in a legal system given the inherent interdependent nature of transactions in a complex modern global economy. The authors start by developing this framework and then apply it to a variety of settings and empirical examples. Using this new method, economists will be able to reshape their analysis to account for how legal systems and specific legal rules impact economic performance and outcomes. This approach will be of great interest to graduate and advanced undergraduate social science scholars, faculty interested in the intersections of law and economics and the application of legal concepts to impact analysis, and practitioners in the fields of policy, law and economics.

This book stems from the principle that each individual on our planet is of the highest value, arguing that each person should be recognized according to what dignity and what values they bear.It shows that the phenomenon of values is not what people want, but what people should want, highlighting that Europe and America have advanced most on this path. As such, the book pays special attention to European and Euro-Atlantic values.It describes how the value system, which society uses as a guide, has dictated the usual norms of behavior of a large number of people. These values are not equally acceptable to all, and some even violate them, but society has developed formal (laws) and informal (customs) institutions to uphold them.The issues discussed in this book, about the modern economy and values, will be interesting for all people who think about the fate of their country and humanity, regardless of their nationality, religious confession, race, profession, age, or worldview.

Lays out an account of the origins and development of liberal political and economic theory

A penetrating analysis from one of the defining voices of contemporary economics. In Beyond Positivism, Behaviorism, and Neoinstitutionalism in Economics, Deirdre Nansen McCloskey zeroes in on the authoritarian cast of recent economics, arguing for a re-focusing on the liberated human. The behaviorist positivism fashionable in the field since the 1930s treats people from the outside. It yielded in Williamson and North a manipulative neo-institutionalism. McCloskey argues that institutions as causes are mainly temporary and intermediate, not ultimate. They are human-made, depending on words, myth, ethics, ideology, history, identity, professionalism, gossip, movies, what your mother taught you. Humans create conversations as they go, in the economy as in the rest of life. In engaging and erudite prose, McCloskey exhibits in detail the scientific failures of neo-institutionalism. She proposes a “humanomics,” an economics with the humans left in. Humanomics keeps theory, quantification, experiment, mathematics, econometrics, though insisting on more true rigor than is usual. It adds what can be learned about the economy from history, philosophy, literature, and all the sciences of humans. McCloskey reaffirms the durability of “market-tested innovation” against the imagined imperfections to be corrected by a perfect government. With her trademark zeal and incisive wit, she rebuilds the foundations of economics.