Schumpeter, Joseph Alois (1883–1950)

Author(s):  
Richard Swedberg

Schumpeter is best known for his seminal work in economics, but he also made important contributions to the fields of political science and sociology. He aimed to create a broad economic science that he called ‘social economics’ (Sozialökonomik), which was to include not only economic theory but also economic history, statistics and economic sociology. Inspiration for this project came in particular from his colleague Max Weber. As an economist Schumpeter is primarily remembered for his theory of the entrepreneur and for his emphasis on the dynamic aspects of economic reality: capitalism, as he saw it, meant first and foremost change. But Schumpeter also made a number of interesting observations about theorizing in economics and the role that vision plays in the work of the economist. His trenchant critique of the conventional theory of democracy and advocacy of a more realistic theory is generally recognized as a major contribution to political theory. Many of Schumpeter’s most important ideas on economics and politics can be found in his bookCapitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), which has become something of a classic in the social sciences.

Author(s):  
Alan Ryan

This chapter describes a “dramatistic,” “dramatic,” or “dramaturgical” approach to the study of social interaction. It asks whether the dramaturgical model insists on the theatricality of social life merely in the sense of insisting that people fill roles just as persons act parts in a play. This is the question of whether the crucial element in the dramaturgical picture is that cluster of insights that goes under the general heading of “role distance.” The chapter considers the peculiarities of rational explanation and about the role of reconstructions of “the thing to do” other than the role of explaining an action or series of actions by focusing on voting behavior in the terms proposed by Anthony Downs's An Economic Theory of Democracy. It also examines some recent accounts of the phenomenon of suicide, along with the rationality principle, which Karl Popper calls “false but indispensable” to the social sciences.


Sociologija ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-296
Author(s):  
Natasa Golubovic ◽  
Srdjan Golubovic ◽  
Srdjan Marinkovic

Endeavours to secure status of exact science for economics led to the exclusion of social and historical component from economic analysis. It is a long term process which started within classical political economy, gradually diverging the postulate upon which economic science is based from economic reality. Above mentioned changes are result of the long-term process during which holistic, social and historical aspects had been gradually removing from economic analysis. In this paper we will analyze the role of marginalism in the extrusion of social and historical from economic analysis.


2016 ◽  
pp. 141-149
Author(s):  
P. Orekhovsky

This review of the almanakh Istoki (Origins) traces the discussions between well-known economists happening both within and between various parts of the book. These different positions in macroeconomics, economic methodology, history of economic thought and economic history demonstrate the multidimensionality of the book prompting its readers to abandon logical empiricism and belief that there is a single "true" theory.


2000 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul P. Streeten

It is argued that in educating economists we should sacrifice some of the more technical aspects of economics (which can be learned later), in favour of the compulsory inclusion of (a) philosophy, (b) political science and (c) economic history. Three reasons for interdisciplinary studies are given. In the discussion of the place of mathematics in economics fuzziness enters when the symbols a, b, c are identified with individuals, firms, or farms. The identification of the precise symbol with the often ambiguous and fuzzy reality, invites lack of precision and blurs the concepts. If the social sciences, including economics, are regarded as a “soft” technology compared with the “hard” technology of the natural sciences, development studies have been regarded as the soft underbelly of “economic science”. In development economics the important question is: what are the springs of development? We must confess that we cannot answer this question, that we do not know what causes successful development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (4) ◽  
pp. 30-50
Author(s):  
Yurii RADIONOV ◽  

Theoretical bases of establishment and development of institutional theory as a new direction of economic science are analyzed. The preconditions for the emergence of institutionalism are studied, the fundamental differences between the new economic trend and classical economic theory are considered. The weakness of economic theories on the role and importance of the state in economic development is noted, the need to synthesize the strengths of institutionalism with neoclassicism to link the social attitudes and interests of individuals is emphasized. The stages of development of institutional theory, different approaches of institutional scientists, the emergence of a new, modern direction – neo-institutionalism – are studied. Differences in the interpretation of the term “institution” between traditional institutionalists and neo-institutionalists are outlined, which indicates a different methodology of its perception. It is emphasized that the doctrine of the depth of nature of institutions and its interpretation divided institutionalism into old and new. If the old questioned the individualistic worldview inherent in the neoclassical paradigm, then the new institutionalists do not deny the individualistic approach. Economic institutions that operate within the social environment are the frameworks or constraints that govern the behavior of society in economic conditions. Emphasis is placed on the prospects for further development of institutional theory, which allows the emergence and development of other theories, social sciences, reveals hitherto unexplored or little-studied phenomena and processes. In modern conditions, the economic difficulties faced by the world economy convincingly confirm the relevance of institutional theory, and the construction of an efficient economy is not limited to an approach based solely on the methodology of the classical school of economic theory. The contradictions posed by modern globalization are becoming a large-scale source of social, political, economic and even military challenges for less developed countries in relation to the more prosperous ones, and international institutionalization is the mechanism designed to alleviate instability.


2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 148-178
Author(s):  
Oreste Bazzichi ◽  
Fabio Reali

This paper wants to demonstrate a scenario where it is evident that the medieval society, starting from the monasticism of St. Benedict (famous motto of «ora et labora») and continuing with the Franciscan School, conserves many elements and ideas of intellectual interest that have a reverberation still valid for today, especially concerning the relationship of man with the economy. The age of the Late Middle Ages in Europe laid the foundations of modern economic science, giving impulse to quite singular reflections gathered from the interpretation of reality, in a typically «Franciscan» key, grasping in the fraternity (franciscan fraternitas) the anthropological and ontological element for the good living in the communitas and for the integral sustainability, therefore, valid also for the economy. It resulted, in fact, the first economic and commercial lexicon that will spread throughout Europe, by the work of important disciples of St. Francis, who grasped a new «spirit» of making economy, completely original, countercurrent, contradicting the prevailing thesis of Max Weber. But Franciscan humanism still offers, even today, the anthropological, social, and cultural presuppositions for a shift of paradigm within the economic discourse, based on the person with all his inclinations and necessities, presuppositions that are already visible in the experience of the Economy of Communion in Freedom, born on May 29, 1991, among the misery of Brazil, to solve the social and economic problem of this time. This revolution of the late Middle Ages, social and market, which was also intellectual and aimed at facing the poverty and injustice of that time, is still repeated today with new faces, experiences, and theories.  


2010 ◽  
pp. 73-89
Author(s):  
M.-F. Garcia

The article examines social conditions and mechanisms of the emergence in 1982 of a «Dutch» strawberry auction in Fontaines-en-Sologne, France. Empirical study of this case shows that perfect market does not arise per se due to an «invisible hand». It is a social construction, which could only be put into effect by a hard struggle between stakeholders and large investments of different forms of capital. Ordinary practices of the market dont differ from the predictions of economic theory, which is explained by the fact that economic theory served as a frame of reference for the designers of the auction. Technological and spatial organization as well as principal rules of trade was elaborated in line with economic views of perfect market resulting in the correspondence between theory and reality.


Author(s):  
Ruqaya Saeed Khalkhal

The darkness that Europe lived in the shadow of the Church obscured the light that was radiating in other parts, and even put forward the idea of democracy by birth, especially that it emerged from the tent of Greek civilization did not mature in later centuries, especially after the clergy and ideological orientation for Protestants and Catholics at the crossroads Political life, but when the Renaissance emerged and the intellectual movement began to interact both at the level of science and politics, the Europeans in democracy found refuge to get rid of the tyranny of the church, and the fruits of the application of democracy began to appear on the surface of most Western societies, which were at the forefront to be doubtful forms of governece.        Democracy, both in theory and in practice, did not always reflect Western political realities, and even since the Greek proposition, it has not lived up to the idealism that was expected to ensure continuity. Even if there is a perception of the success of the democratic process in Western societies, but it was repulsed unable to apply in Islamic societies, because of the social contradiction added to the nature of the ruling regimes, and it is neither scientific nor realistic to convey perceptions or applications that do not conflict only with our civilized reality The political realization created by certain historical circumstances, and then disguises the different reality that produced them for the purpose of resonance in the ideal application.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-98
Author(s):  
Pia Rowe ◽  
David Marsh

While Wood and Flinders’ work to broaden the scope of what counts as “politics” in political science is a needed adjustment to conventional theory, it skirts an important relationship between society, the protopolitical sphere, and arena politics. We contend, in particular, that the language of everyday people articulates tensions in society, that such tensions are particularly observable online, and that this language can constitute the beginning of political action. Language can be protopolitical and should, therefore, be included in the authors’ revised theory of what counts as political participation.


2019 ◽  
pp. 74-98
Author(s):  
A.B. Lyubinin

Review of the monograph indicated in the subtitle V.T. Ryazanov. The reviewer is critical of the position of the author of the book, believing that it is possible and even necessary (to increase the effectiveness of General economic theory and bring it closer to practice) substantial (and not just formal-conventional) synthesis of the Marxist system of political economy with its non-Marxist systems. The article emphasizes the difference between the subject and the method of the classical, including Marxist, school of political economy with its characteristic objective perception of the subject from the neoclassical school with its reduction of objective reality to subjective assessments; this excludes their meaningful synthesis as part of a single «modern political economy». V.T. Ryazanov’s interpretation of commodity production in the economic system of «Capital» of K. Marx as a purely mental abstraction, in fact — a fiction, myth is also counter-argued. On the issue of identification of the discipline «national economy», the reviewer, unlike the author of the book, takes the position that it is a concrete economic science that does not have a political economic status.


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