scholarly journals Introduction to the symposium on institutional analysis, market processes, and interdisciplinary social science

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Daniel J. D'Amico ◽  
Adam G. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Process Analysis ◽  
Institutional Analysis ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Austrian Economics ◽  
Market Process ◽  
Complex Phenomenon

Abstract Heterodox economic approaches such as Austrian economics and market process analysis rely upon a less formalistic approach to rationality than neoclassical frameworks. We argue such looser formalism provides a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary engagement to investigating and understanding social institutions, outcomes and complex phenomenon. This introduction briefly summarizes the contents of this invited issue as effective examples of such interdisciplinarity.

Introduction: The Anthropocene as Context and Concept for the Study of Higher Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
RYAN EVELY GILDERSLEEVE ◽  
KATIE KLEINHESSELINK
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Analytic Tool ◽  
The Social ◽  
Geologic Condition

The Anthropocene has emerged in philosophy and social science as a geologic condition with radical consequence for humankind, and thus, for the social institutions that support it, such as higher education. This essay introduces the special issue by outlining some of the possibilities made available for social/philosophical research about higher education when the Anthropocene is taken seriously as an analytic tool. We provide a patchwork of discussions that attempt to sketch out different ways to consider the Anthropocene as both context and concept for the study of higher education. We conclude the essay with brief introductory remarks about the articles collected for this special issue dedicated to “The Anthropocene and Higher Education.”

‘Riding the Juggernaut’: Selectivity and Entrepreneurship in Ireland

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Carr
Keyword(s):  
Expert System ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Industrial Policy ◽  
Institutional Analysis ◽  
The State ◽  
Enterprise Culture ◽  
Dependency Theory ◽  
Science Discussion ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Relationship

The creation of a class of strong native entrepreneurs has long been an aim of Irish industrial policy. Social science discussion of strategies stimulating Irish enterprise have tended to emanate from two broad theoretical viewpoints, modernisation theory and dependency theory,f which hold opposing views on the role the Stale can play in the promotion of business and enterprise. Considerations of the relationship between the State and an indigenous class of entrepreneurs have tended to centre on notions of ‘modernising’ and the ‘modernisation’ of society. This article shifts the focus away from a concentration on modernising to a consideration of the nature of modernity. The tendency to equate modernisation and modernity is liable to conceal or misrepresent the activities of certain economic actors, in particular State personnel. Using elements of the institutional analysis of modernity developed by Giddens (1991), the article examines the ‘selectivity function’ of Irish State personnel and their relationship with potential Irish entrepreneurs. This selectivity function can be construed as an attempt to establish an expert system to enable State personnel to assert some control over the enterprise culture juggernaut.

scholarly journals Two theoretical approaches to human behavior and social institutions

2021 ◽  
pp. 13-50
Author(s):  
Javier Aranzadi del Cerro
Keyword(s):  
Market Economy ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Dynamic Structure ◽  
Chicago School ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Jel Classification ◽  
Market Process ◽  
Ludwig Von Mises ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Von Mises

This paper deals with theoretical approaches to the real economic crisis we are suffering. I set out the poverty of the theoretical solutions offered by mainstream neoclassical economics and the necessity of a new theoretical approach, which is not obsessed by the positivist method. My argument is based on the work of Ludwig von Mises who was considered to give the best theoretical arguments in the debate on the impossibility of efficient economic calculation under centrally planned socialism. Although nowadays the Austrian School is considered old-fashion and lacking in scientific rigour, I agree with the late Professor Sumantra Ghoshal that it is necessary to escape from strait-jacketed methods and try to understand real economics problems. Our market economy is suffering from what he described as the consequences of bad theories destroying good entrepreneurial practices. For I do think that the triumph over communism is in danger of becoming a Pyrrhic victory if we lose our understanding of the market economy and its dynamic structure based on entrepreneurs and firms. Key words: Human action, Ludwig von Mises, Chicago School, entrepre - neurship, market process, social institutions. JEL Classification: A10; B41; B53; D00. Resumen: Este artículo compara los modelos teóricos con los que se analiza la crisis económica que estamos sufriendo. Planteo la pobreza teórica ofrecida por el paradigma neoclásico dominante y defiendo la necesidad de nuevas aproximaciones teóricas que no estén obsesionadas por el método positivista. Mi argumento se basa en la obra de Ludwig von Mises quien fue considerado el economista que esgrimió los mejores argumentos tóricos en el debate sobre la imposibilidad de una cálculo económico eficiente en una económica de planificación central. Aunque hoy en día se considera que la Escuela Austriaca está pasada de moda y falta de rigor científico, estoy de acuerdo con el difunto profesor Sumantra Ghoshal sobre la necesidad de abandonar los métodos encorsetados e intentar comprender los problemas económicos reales. Nuestra economía de mercado está sufriendo las consecuencias de lo que él describe como malas teorías que destruyen buenas prácticas empresariales. Son estas las razones por las que pienso que el triunfo sobre el comunismo está en riego de convertirse en una victoria pírrica si perdemos nuestra comprensión de la economía de mercado y su estructura dinámica basadas en la empresarialidad y la empresa privada. Palabras clave: Acción humana, Ludwig von Mises, Escuela de Chicago, empresarialidad, proceso de mercado, instituciones sociales. Clasificación JEL: A10; B41; B53; D00.

Alternative Models of Peasant Families : A Critique of the New Home Economics

1984 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-121
Author(s):  
Ellen Wiegandt ◽  
Urs Luterbacher
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Chicago School ◽  
Home Economics ◽  
Alternative Models ◽  
The Family ◽  
The One ◽  
Neoclassical Analysis

In presenting some ideas about the organization of families, this paper includes an explicit criticism of « economistic » theories of the family and social institutions. Broadly conceived, « economism », or the explanation of societal forms and phenomena through economic and productive processes, has become one of the dominant paradigms in modem social science. Two powerful currents of thought have largely contributed to the development of this perspective – Marxism on the one hand and, more recently, the Chicago school of economics which applies so-called neoclassical analysis to all kinds of institutions ranging from slavery (Fogel and Engerman 1974), to feudalism (North and Thomas 1971), to the family (Becker 1981), and to legal organizations (Posner 1981).

Resiliency or Resignation: Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Austro-Marxism, and the Psychology of Unemployment, 1919–1933

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Charles H. Clavey
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Present State ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Unemployed

The Unemployed of Marienthal (1933) has long been esteemed as a classic of twentieth-century social science; its portrait of the effects of joblessness on individual minds and social institutions has inspired generations of researchers. But this reception has largely overlooked the political origins and implications of the study. This essay resituates Marienthal in the context of its creation and dissemination: the distinctive Marxism of interwar Austria. Specifically, it demonstrates that Marienthal introduced social-psychological methods and findings into Marxist debates about the present state and future prospects of the working class. Led by Paul F. Lazarsfeld, the Marienthal researchers adopted the Austro-Marxist goal of creating a model proletariat through a program of “anticipatory socialism.” But by finding that unemployment confounded efforts to reform the working class, Marienthal undermined the very program it aimed to support. In fact, the essay shows, Marienthal authorized arguments that the unemployed were unreliable political actors—“declassed” workers as likely to become reactionaries as revolutionaries. The essay concludes by considering whether Marienthal embodied a distinctively Austro-Marxist “style” of thinking and research.

The Not-so-trivial Truth of Methodological Individualism

1998 ◽  
pp. 69-76
Author(s):  
Maarten Franssen
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Methodological Individualism ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intentional Psychology ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Social Entities

I defend the truth of the principle of methodological individualism in the social sciences. I do so by criticizing mistaken ideas about the relation between individual people and social entities held by earlier defenders of the principle. I argue, first, that social science is committed to the intentional stance; the domain of social science, therefore, coincides with the domain of intentionally described human action. Second, I argue that social entitites are theoretical terms, but quite different from the entities used in the natural sciences to explain our empirical evidence. Social entities (such as institutions) are conventional and open-ended constructions, the applications of which is a matter of judgment, not of discovery. The terms in which these social entities are constructed are the beliefs, expectations and desires, and the corresponding actions of individual people. The relation between the social and the individual 'levels' differs fundamentally from that between, say, the cellular and the molecular in biology. Third, I claim that methodological individualism does not amount to a reduction of social science to psychology; rather, the science of psychology should be divided. Intentional psychology forms in tandom with the analysis of social institutions, unitary psycho-social science; cognitive psychology tries to explain how the brain works and especially how the intentional stance is applicable to human behavior.

Book Reviews

2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-121
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycles ◽  
Austrian Economics ◽  
Austrian School ◽  
Market Process ◽  
Florida State University ◽  
State University ◽  
Economic Calculation ◽  
The Core

Roger W. Garrison of Auburn University reviews “Advanced Introduction to the Austrian School of Economics”, by Randall G. Holcombe. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Provides an introduction and summary of the core principles, ideas, and diversity of modern Austrian economics. Discusses the market process; decentralized knowledge—the role of firms and markets; economic calculation; money, banking, and business cycles; and the resurgence of the Austrian school. Holcombe is DeVoe Moore Professor of Economics at Florida State University.”

Austrian Economics and the Evolutionary Paradigm

2015 ◽  
pp. 575-593
Author(s):  
Naomi Beck ◽  
Ulrich Witt
Keyword(s):  
Future Development ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Austrian Economics ◽  
Preliminary Evaluation ◽  
Carl Menger

This chapter discusses the challenges raised by the inclusion of evolutionary elements in the theories of Carl Menger, Joseph Schumpeter, and Friedrich Hayek. Each adopted an idiosyncratic position in terms of method of inquiry, focus, and general message. The breadth of the topics and phenomena they cover testifies to the great variety of interpretations and potential uses of evolutionary concepts in economics. Menger, who made no reference to Darwin’s theory, advanced an “organic” view of the emergence of social institutions. Schumpeter elaborated an original theory of industrial development based on the recurrent emergence and dissemination of innovations. Hayek adopted the biological notion of group selection and made it the central element in his theory of cultural evolution and the rise of the free market. The chapter concludes with a preliminary evaluation of the possible role that evolutionary theorizing might play in the future development of Austrian economics.

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