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

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

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

From Economics Imperialism to Freakonomics: The Shifting Boundaries Between Economics and Other Social Sciences

Is or has economics ever been the imperial social science? Could or should it ever be so? These are the central concerns of this book. It involves a critical reflection on the process of how economics became the way it is, in terms of a narrow and intolerant orthodoxy, that has, nonetheless, increasingly directed its attention to appropriating the subject matter of other social sciences through the process termed "economics imperialism". In other words, the book addresses the shifting boundaries between economics and the other social sciences as seen from the confines of the dismal science, with some reflection on the responses to the economic imperialists by other disciplines. Significantly, an old economics imperialism is identified of the "as if market" style most closely associated with Gary Becker, the public choice theory of Buchanan and Tullock and cliometrics. But this has given way to a more "revolutionary" form of economics imperialism associated with the information-theoretic economics of Akerlof and Stiglitz, and the new institutional economics of Coase, Wiliamson and North. Embracing one "new" field after another, economics imperialism reaches its most extreme version in the form of "freakonomics", the economic theory of everything on the basis of the most shallow principles. By way of contrast and as a guiding critical thread, a thorough review is offered of the appropriate principles underpinning political economy and its relationship to social science, and how these have been and continue to be deployed. The case is made for political economy with an interdisciplinary character, able to bridge the gap between economics and other social sciences, and draw upon and interrogate the nature of contemporary capitalism