Economics Review of Radical Political Homo Economicus and the Economics of Property Rights: History in Reverse Order of Radical Political Homo Economicus and the Economics of Property Rights: History in Reverse Order

Abstract This article challenges some fundamental propositions of property rights theory by revealing the inability of new institutional economics to fully grasp the notion of property, as reflected in its narrow and problematic definition of property rights. The concept of property relations is proposed as better suited to capture the social and institutional aspects of property. By reconsidering the case of the Montagnais, originally used by Alchian and Demsetz for illustrative purposes, and drawing on the works of Polanyi and McManus, we show that the historical explanation of the emergence of (private) property rights provided by Alchian and Demsetz is flawed. JEL Codes: D02, D23, P1

Crise Econômica, Crise da Economia e o Futuro da Economia Política

Geralmente, na área da ciência, quando algum evento raro e impactante ocorre, algo que não foi previsto pelas ferramentas de ponta da ciência — um cisne negro na terminologia de Taleb (2007, p. xvii-xviii) —, ou quando alguma nova evidência que não pode ser explicada por essas ferramentas é descoberta, representando uma anomalia na terminologia de Kuhnian, o campo científico pode ser abalado e novas propostas, ferramentas, teorias, etc. são apresentadas para tentar explicar o evento ou evidência até então inexplicável

Rejuvenating the Renewal of Political Economy: The International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE)

First paragraph: Following the global economic meltdown of September 2008 and the ensuing economic depression, we are now experiencing what is arguably the third phase of the crisis, that of the eurozone and national debt, with a variety of countries within the eurozone facing the threat of default. In the global North, economic policies have neither ended the neoliberal agenda nor curbed the demands of a resurgent financial sector. Instead, after a pseudo-Keynesian moment centred on ›quantitative easing‹ the governments of the richest countries have launched a new set of neoliberal assaults characterised by the harshest of austerity measures. From 2009 onwards, this resurgent neoliberal wave has spread progressively from peripheral European countries to the UK, the eurozone, and now the USA. Along with rocketing unemployment, particularly among the young, this economic onslaught, on those who are in no way perceived as accountable for the crisis and slump, promises a period of major social disruption in welfare provision and institutions, pressures on wages and working conditions and, in response across a growing number of countries, multitudes of spontaneous and, occasionally, mass actions as macroeconomic prospects deteriorate

Crise Econômica, Crise da Economia e o Futuro da Economia Política

Geralmente, na área da ciência, quando algum evento raro e impactante ocorre, algo que não foi previsto pelas ferramentas de ponta da ciência — um cisne negro na terminologia de Taleb (2007, p. xvii-xviii) —, ou quando alguma nova evidência que não pode ser explicada por essas ferramentas é descoberta, representando uma anomalia na terminologia de Kuhnian, o campo científico pode ser abalado e novas propostas, ferramentas, teorias, etc. são apresentadas para tentar explicar o evento ou evidência até então inexplicável

Crise Econômica, Crise da Economia e o Futuro da Economia Política

Geralmente, na área da ciência, quando algum evento raro e impactante ocorre, algo que não foi previsto pelas ferramentas de ponta da ciência — um cisne negro na terminologia de Taleb (2007, p. xvii-xviii) —, ou quando alguma nova evidência que não pode ser explicada por essas ferramentas é descoberta, representando uma anomalia na terminologia de Kuhnian, o campo científico pode ser abalado e novas propostas, ferramentas, teorias, etc. são apresentadas para tentar explicar o evento ou evidência até então inexplicável

‘Useless but True’: Economic Crisis and the Peculiarities of Economic Science

AbstractThe recent economic crisis has brought to the fore another crisis that has been going on for many years, that of (orthodox) economic theory. The latter failed to predict and, after the event, cannot offer an explanation of why it happened. This article sketches out why this is the case and what constitutes the crisis of economics. On this basis, the case is made for the revival of an interdisciplinary political economy as the only way for offering an explanation of the workings of the (capitalist) economy in general and of economic crises in particular. </jats:sec

From Political Economy to Economics: Method, the Social and the Historical in the Evolution of Economic Theory

Economics has become a monolithic science, variously described as formalistic and autistic with neoclassical orthodoxy reigning supreme. So argue Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine in this new major work of critical recollection. The authors show how economics was once rich, diverse, multidimensional and pluralistic, and unravel the processes that lead to orthodoxy’s current predicament. The book details how political economy became economics through the desocialisation and the dehistoricisation of the dismal science, accompanied by the separation of economics from the other social sciences, especially economic history and sociology. It is argued that recent attempts from within economics to address the social and the historical have failed to acknowledge long standing debates amongst economists, historians and other social scientists. This has resulted in an impoverished historical and social content within mainstream economics. The book ranges over the shifting role of the historical and the social in economic theory, the shifting boundaries between the economic and the non-economic, all within a methodological context. Schools of thought and individuals, that have been neglected or marginalised, are treated in full, including classical political economy and Marx, the German and British historical schools, American institutionalism, Weber and Schumpeter and their programme of Socialökonomik, and the Austrian school. At the same time, developments within the mainstream tradition from marginalism through Marshall and Keynes to general equilibrium theory are also scrutinised, and the clashes between the various camps from the famous Methodenstreit to the fierce debates of the 1930s and beyond brought to the fore. The prime rationale underpinning this account drawn from the past is to put the case for political economy back on the agenda. This is done by treating economics as a social science once again, rather than as a positive science, as has been the inclination since the time of Jevons and Walras. It involves transcending the boundaries of the social sciences, but in a particular way that is in exactly the opposite direction now being taken by "economics imperialism". Drawing on the rich traditions of the past, the reintroduction and full incorporation of the social and the historical into the main corpus of political economy will be possible in the future

From Freakonomics to Political Economy

AbstractIn this response to the symposium on our two books we try to deal as fully as possible in the brief space available with most of the major issues raised by our distinguished commentators. Although at least three of them are in agreement with the main thrust of the arguments put forward in our books, they all raise important issues relating to methodology, the history of economic thought (including omissions), and a number of more specific issues. Our answer is based on the restatement of the chief purpose of our two books, describing the intellectual history of the evolution of economic science emphasising the role of the excision of the social and the historical from economic theorising in the transition from (classical) political economy to (neoclassical) economics, only for the two to be reunited through the vulgar form of economics imperialism following the monolithic dominance of neoclassical economics at the expense of pluralism after the Second World War. The importance of political economy for the future of economic science is vigorously argued for.</jats:sec