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In this paper I consider various shifts in my research and understanding stimulated by seeking how to combat social ecological crises connected to modern economies. The discussion and critical reflections are structured around five papers that were submitted to Environmental Values in an open call to address my work. A common aspect is the move away from neoclassical environmental economics, and its reductionist monetary valuation, to a more realist theory and multiple methods. This relates to my work on environmental ethics, plural values, stated preference validity and deliberative monetary valuation. Expanding beyond the narrow confines of mainstream orthodoxy has involved exploring a range of other disciplines (e.g. applied philosophy, social psychology, human geography, political science, social anthropology, history of thought and philosophy of science) and learning from this literature to rethink economics and develop social ecological economics. A broad range of subjects are covered here, including: personal responsibility, social practice, psychology of the individual, participatory processes, value (intrinsic, instrumental and relational), Nature–society relationships and interdependencies, critical realism and the conduct of unifying interdisciplinary science. I end with a series of comments concerning the failings of orthodox economics and the conduct of scientific research for social ecological transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses several articles published within issue on topics related to limitations of neoclassical economics (NCE); and failure of mainstream economics in bringing in the balance with social and ecological goals.

Microeconomics requires a new grounding or formulation that can account for a broader range of socioeconomic behavior than neoclassical economics does. The core of the neoclassical economics research program—the theory of rational choice—has offered insights into the determination of socioeconomic behavior. But other elements need to be integrated into a coherent microeconomic perspective. We introduce such a perspective in which neoclassical economics becomes a special case. This advances our understanding of the determinants of behavior in a coherent and integrated manner. This perspective may form the foundation of an evolutionary and institutional perspective on socioeconomic systems. This has practical value in designing strategy and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are a number of analytical conundrums in the neo-classical theory of the emergence of private ownership rights, which is closely associated with Demsetz’s works. Reconsidering the internal logic of private ownership rights, the paper argues that, first, the emergence of “modern” private ownership rights should be the subject of analysis rather than ownership rights per se. Second, at least for some latecomer countries, modern ownership rights typically emerge when feudalistic multi-layered proprietary rights over land are abolished and replaced by ownership rights for the purpose of ensuring tax revenue, prompted by pressure from and/or the intrusion of a colonial power, rather than as an efficient response to changes in resource prices. Third, the socio-economic aspect of ownership rights that related to the manner of social formation tended to be concealed in the universal aspect of private property rights that focuses on the materialistic relation between a person and a thing. These arguments urge the bringing of social relations into the basic layer of analysis of ownership rights theory, as the original institutional economists such as Ely and Commons considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present and explore the deleterious socioeconomic consequence of six interrelated trends upon the sustainability of the personal portion of America’s social contract.Design/methodology/approach Neoclassical economic growth theory is used to frame the discussion of the trends in significant variables. This paper is a general review and draws on widely available data and academic insights of scholars.Findings This detailed examination leads to rejection of ergodicity and concludes that the existing social contract is unrealizable and unsustainable in present form for all but a shrinking minority of citizens.Research limitations/implications The conclusion is robust but tentative since the trends reviewed are not fixed and may deviate from existing trend lines given undetermined government policies and unforeseeable technological developments.Originality/value The paper examines the origins and implications of six adverse systemic trends, highlighting the fact that existing policy prescriptions lack understanding of – and/or scale to comprehensively address – a growing existential threat to the Liberal Tradition’s entrenched social contract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both formal and informal institutions are usually perceived as constraints that structure and limit human behavior. This is understandable when we use them as an addition to neoclassical economics and as an attempt to overcome its deficiencies. Yet institutions also enable behavior which would otherwise probably be inexistent. This paper aims to highlight the enabling feature of institutions and briefly recognizes selected consequences of it. We argue (1) that because institutional arrangements cause specific distribution results thus the process of institutional change is virtually infinite and does not have to lead to socially optimal effects and (2) that informal institutions (social norms) have today important explanatory and creative power for the existing social order and economic development. We conclude by suggesting that more interdisciplinary approach to economics may contribute to our better understanding of socioeconomic reality and indicate promising threads of current research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders classical and neoclassical economics' significance for or affinity and convergence with sociological theory. The paper identifies certain types or elements of classical and neoclassical economics that are potentially significant or convergent with sociological theory: pure market economics, the economics of society cum the 'rational choice model', and social or sociological economics. First, it argues that as pure economics economic theory's significance for or affinity and convergence with sociological theory is low because the first is inconsistent with or divergent from the latter, notably theoretical economic sociology. Second, the paper suggests that as the economics of society economic theory's significance for or affinity and convergence with sociological theory is non-existent or minimal, because the 'rational choice model' is missing or an exception within conventional economics. Third, the paper proposes and demonstrates that classical and neoclassical economics' main significance for or affinity and convergence with sociological theory lies in social economics as its second ingredient, alongside market economics. The paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between economic and sociological theory and economics and sociology overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public policies have become embedded with market-based mechanisms to radically transform essential goods and services markets. This article proposes a framework for empirical analysis of these markets. Key theoretical propositions are distilled to 12 distinctive properties of markets. These properties foreshadow a set of questions to interrogate a market's structure, operation, participants, behaviors, rules, and price setting to generate a substantive, realistic picture of outcomes. This 'analytical grid' of questions is applied to four Australian essential goods and services markets. The findings unequivocally demonstrate a very different picture of markets from that promulgated by mainstream neoclassical economics and public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The neoclassical concept of the market is built on a number of assumptions that lead one to view it as a type of ether, devoid of any institutional content. In opposition to this point of view, this article proposes an alternative characterization of markets based on the fundamental principles of institutional and post- Keynesian economics. After reviewing the main features that characterize the behavior of economic agents, we analyze the set of interrelations between these agents within markets and the role of institutions in the regulation of these interrelations. Finally, we discuss some of the consequences generated by the institutional dimensions of markets with regard to their origins and evolution, the justification for their existence, or the evaluation of their results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The alliance of pure market economies with democratic polities has traditionally been a problematic one. It is argued that orthodox theoretical conceptualizations of market behaviour and the application of such theory to our communal lives have entrenched an incoherent alliance. In particular, the reductive mechanism characteristic of both neo-classical economic theory and its deployment in our socio-economic order has severely undermined the telic agency required for the autonomy or self-rule definitive of an authentic democratic order. Such reduction is observed to function through the disabling of the cognitive capacity of consumers and by disempowering the agency of workers such that coercion is misconceived as freely agreed contract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intangible flow theory explains that flows of economic material elements (such as physical goods; or cash) are consummated by human related intangible flows (such as work flows; service flows; information flows; or communicational flows) that cannot be precisely appraised at an actual or approximate value, and have properties precluding them from being classified as assets or capitals. Thus, although mathematical/quantitative research methodologies are very relevant for science, they are insufficient to study economy and society. Due to its prejudice against non-mathematical/quantitative scientific reasoning, neoclassical economics could not be technologically prepared to reach the intangible flow dynamics of economic phenomena. Furthermore, the neoclassical solution to call people human capital or assets, besides being ethically very questionable, offers performative non-scientific metaphors that intervene in the production of the reality they claim to represent; and sabotages the study of well delimited research questions by scientific approaches outside the realm of neoclassical economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the shift away from neoclassical economics toward interdependent capitalism economics. Information is provided on how the global financial crisis changed the way economists formulate and forecast economic trends, forcing them to account for social science changes and the reality of human interdependence.

By exploring the implications of the linkage between Knight and Pragmatism, some non-trivial implications can be argued to exist. Specifically, section 2 outlines the T.C.E. literature, and how it exists in an atmosphere mixed with Marshallian competition and Knightian uncertainty. Section 3 then considers the disparate philosophical positions behind the work of Knight and Marshall. Knight's critique of Marshall is seminal, not because of any trivial technical innovations that Knight may have inspired within economic theory, but because Knight grounds his work on a philosophical viewpoint that effectively devastated Hegelian philosophy: American Pragmatism. Section 4 then links together the previous two sections by considering how the T.C.E. literature exhibits a dependency on both Pragmatism and Hegelian philosophy. The non-trivial implications of understanding the T.C.E. literature as a branch of Marshallian economics, which recognises Knightian uncertainty, are developed in section 5. Possible conclusions and a summary of the argument are provided in section 6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1963, the North Dakota Legislature amended the North Dakota Century Code to ensure that all licensed community pharmacies in the State are majority owned by pharmacists registered in the State. During the 2008-2009 legislative session, a debate arose about whether this law should be repealed. Those in favor of repeal attacked the law using the neoclassical arguments of efficiency, competition and lower prices. Those opposed to the law's repeal argued that pharmacists must own pharmacies in order to protect the public's welfare. This paper explores the arguments made for and against this law and draws two major conclusions. First, the arguments made by both sides are flawed because neither side fully incorporates the historical, physical and cultural characteristics of North Dakota communities into their analyses. Second, North Dakota legislators voted overwhelmingly to retain the law. Moreover, prima fascia evidence indicates that the legislators based their decisions on Institutional considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of transaction cost economics (TCE) in the early 1970s with Oliver Williamson's successful reconciliation of the socalled neoclassical approach with Herbert Simon's organizational theory can be considered an important part of the first cognitive turn in economics. The development of TCE until the late 1980s was particularly marked by treating the firm as an avoider of negative frictions, i.e., of transaction costs. However, since the 1990s TCE has been enriched by various approaches stressing the role of the firm in creating positive value, e.g., the literature on modularity. Hence, a second cognitive turn has taken place: the firm is no longer only seen as an avoider of negative costs but also as a creator of positive knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An individual's preferences are interdependent when they can be influenced by the behaviour of other agents. This paper analyzes the internal dynamics of an approach in contemporary economics allowing for interdependent preferences, the extended utility approach (EUA), which presents itself as a mild reform of neoclassical economics. I contend that this approach succeeds in broadening the policy perspectives of mainstream economics by challenging neoclassical policy stances. However, this success comes with a limitation: the EUA is unable to supply new consensual policy stances as alternatives to the challenged ones. The reason for this limitation is that the EUA opens the possibility of a wide variety of specifications for the utility function, and policy conclusions are sensitive to the details of these specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deficiencies of economic science are examined against its historical development: the utilitarian concentration upon individual choice conflates preferences and values and the hedonistic calculus is inoperable in the presence of incommensurability. In restricting explanations of behavioral patterns to changes in prices, incomes, and other“economic” variables, neoclassical analysis was destined to draw implausible conclusions. While the uniqueness of man rests in a highly developed self-consciousness, his rationality need not imply conscious reason. Decisions and actions that are made in response to inputs from all of the sensory modalities are led by conventions and traditions that give structure to every response. Biological, psychological, social, and ethical constraints so limit purposeful action, that a complete economist (paceG. L. S. Shackle) is one who has mastered mathematics, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, history, geography, and political science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout much of the legal community, the term "economics" evokes memories of undergraduate micro- and macroeconomic courses. At most American colleges and universities, these courses focus almost exclusively on neoclassical economic theory,' which forms the foundation of what is thought of as mainstream economics in the United States. Therefore, it also should not be surprising that law professors and others who come from backgrounds that have been marginalized and oppressed by the policy instruments constructed using neoclassical economic theory, both generally and as it has infiltrated the law and legal thinking, would devote greater effort to interrogating mainstream economic theory, than those who benefit from the ideologically determined distributions of assets, resources, and opportunities that this system achieves.

The article focuses on economic analysis oriented towards understanding the workings of economies. Attempts have been made to promote an evolutionary approach towards economics. Basic questions related to the coordination of economic activity depend upon a central authority guiding and commanding action. The questions concerned with the processes driving economic progress, pulls the theorizing of economics, towards an evolutionary orientation. The question of economic development has waxed and waned in centrality to the discipline, as has the importance of evolutionary theorizing. It became the standard view that microeconomic theory was about equilibrium conditions. Many neoclassical economists seem to hold the view that an evolutionary theory of firm and industry behavior and a neoclassical one really amount to the same thing. The problem of variety is that for the selection process to arrive at a neoclassical destination, the existing firms must represent a wide enough variety of strategies and actions that the profit-maximizing neoclassical behavior is represented.

Classical political economy recognised that what needed analysing, explaining, and acting on was an economic system inextricably linked to the wider political and social systems. Smith and Ricardo, as well as Marx, saw class and the distribution of income as key. Neoclassical economics replaced these social and collective categories with the individual consumer and the marginal product of labour as the fundamental analytical categories—the "political" having been discarded. Yet even one of the founders of neoclassical economics, Alfred Marshall, would barely recognise nor accept what is today presented as economic analysis, ignoring as it does the key industrial and organisational detail underlying production. The "new political economy" claims to incorporate insights from other disciplines. But far from enriching economic analysis, these new strands of theory simply impose the assumptions and methods of neoclassical economics. We argue that this new economic imperialism needs to be replaced with a genuinely multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to analysing economic issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critiques the notion of embededness as a paradigm for economic sociology, suggesting that while the concept proved useful during the subfield's productive first decade and a half, it may now be appropriate to explore the implications of the way the concept has been developed and deployed within economic sociology. The notion of embededness enjoys a privileged and as of yet, largely unchallenged position as the central organizing principle of economic sociology. Indeed, economic sociology stands out among subfields of sociology for its clearly defined research program and internal coherence. The main objective of this essay is to focus on the way in which economic sociology has been shaped by the idea of embededness. The notion of embededness has deflected attention away from important theoretical problems. The relative neglect of the concept of the market in economic sociology is a result of the way in which the notion of embededness has been formulated. In conclusion, this article has suggested that the concept of embededness has contributed to the lack of an adequate theorization of the market in economic sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reconsiders the generalization of neoclassical economics by modern rational choice theory. Hence, it reexamines the possible theoretical grounds or lack thereof within neoclassical economics for economic imperialism implied in much of rational choice theory. Some indicative instances of rational choice theory's generalization of neoclassical economics are reviewed. The main portion of the article addresses the question as to whether neoclassical economics allows its generalization in rational choice theory and thus legitimizes economic imperialism. Presented are a number of pertinent theoretical reasons why neoclassical economics does not fully justify its generalization into rational choice as a general social theory, particularly into an overarching economic approach to social action and society. Also discussed are some theoretical implications of the rational choice generalization of neoclassical economics. The main contribution of the article is to detect lack of a strong theoretical rationale in much of neoclassial economics for rational choice theory's manifest or latent economic imperialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a speech entitled "The Methodology of Economics," by Columbia University Professor Amitai Etzioni at the 9th Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) International Conference on Socio-Economics in which he discussed neoclassical economics and socio-economics by providing background and critiques of both models.

Presents a study on Western economics and the economy of Japan. Effect of culture on the economic behavior of individuals; Reason for focusing on Japan; Focus on the Western notion of self-interest in neoclassical microeconomic theory.

Provides a framework for integrating economic and sociological theory by reconceptualizing the concept of market failure. Economics and sociology in historical perspective; Neoclassical economics and marginalist revolution.

This article examines the neoclassical theory of economic growth through a comparative historical analysis of social development in Costa Rica and Chile in the post-1930 period. The neoclassical model underestimates the social and political sources of social development. Markets may create a dynamic and expanding economy, but growth will not automatically result in social infrastructure that will advance the social conditions of the majority. It is in this context that working-class mobilization is decisive for social development. As the Costa Rican and Chilean experience shows, a mobilized working-class can advance social development by forcing government actors to implement social policies in the attempt to either weaken the strength of labor or to buy labor's support. In either case, labor fulfills a critical role in establishing the statutory and bureaucratic precedents for advances in social development.

Based on N. Georgescu-Roegen's bioeconomic paradigm, this paper reconsiders the neoclassical economic paradigm which endorses continuous global economic growth through stimulated trade. We suggest that, in view of sustainability, it is fundamental to acknowledge: (1) the importance of preserving the identity and integrity of economic systems in different regions of the world through enlarging as much as possible self-sufficiency and equity assessed at national and regional levels; and (2) the importance of including respect for biospheric equilibria as one criterion to be used to regulate world economic activity and trade. We examine differences and similarities of the past and present patterns of ecological degradation. We also present two types of efficiency to assess technological changes and the drive toward unsustainability. Then we discuss an entropy-based theory of North-South trade issues and three points for promotion of sustainability. Finally, we show that the true origin of current ecological crisis lies in a deep change in the perception of the relation between humans and nature that affects the mode of technological development of modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assumptions of omniscient rationality and of optimizing behavior of neoclassical economics are serious flaws in that theoretical system. By imitating Newtonian mechanics, by going back to 18th century psychology and philosophy and to Bentham's rationalism and hedonism, and by assuming the ideal world of perfect competition, neoclassical economics had to ignore its psychological dimension and thus focus on the behavior of a simple and abstract "economic man," who lacks social, ethical and political dimensions, and who is not a creature of habit, hunches, impulses, etc. The rationality postulate cannot be tested empirically and economic behavior is much too complicated to warrant use of the classical optimization techniques of Newtonian mechanics. Economics, dealing with open systems and being an evolutionary science, once again is not logically consistent with the application of classical Newtonian optimization techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terms of discourse in the Neoclassical school of economic theory have constrained its ability to develop the connections between the economic and the social and political spheres. Building on the logic of the rent-seeking research program a systematic connection is developed A taxonomy of distribution is presented in which rent and profit are identified as distributions to control over productive factors The structure of control embodied in social and political institutions largely determines who controls these productive factors and therefore who receives the distributions to control: profit and rent. The distinction between profit and rent relates to opportunity cost Profit is a distribution to control equal to opportunity cost and is therefore allocatively necessary. Rent is a return above and beyond opportunity cost and is not allocatively necessary. By clarifying the role of rent and profit in Neoclassical theory the interconnection between the social, political, and economic spheres is systematically integrated into the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cardinal postulate of neoclassical economics is that individuals and entrepreneurs seek to maximize their unique positions in the world. Yet behind this postulate is an even more fundamental premise: that men are rational and can discern their own best interests. From Adam Smith on, it has been accepted that reasonable men act to maximize their own pecuniary advantage and in most economic models even the potential for irrationality is ignored. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly obvious from the research conclusions of other disciplines (psychology, philosophy, political science, and sociology in particular) that the simplistic notion of "economic man," posited so often in the economics literature, is more fancy than fact. There is an implicit recognition that the neoclassical assumptions may not be correct in the developing area of economic behaviorism. The economic behaviorists, however, adopt a more general definition of rationality, substituting what might be called a "modified rationality postulate" for the global rationality assumed in neoclassical theory. As a result, their conclusions do not differ greatly from those of the neoclassicists. Fortunately, ideas are now crystallizing in psychology which may enable us to shed light on decisions which previously would have had to be classified as non-rational, irrational, or unexplainable. Some of those ideas are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses sociological aspects of British economic thought. This article seeks to amplify and interpret economist J.A. Schumpeter's remarks, but in a provisional rather than a comprehensive and definitive way, for there are serious gaps in people's knowledge. In 1885, when economist Alfred Marshall became professor of political economy at Cambridge, the condition of his subject was profoundly discouraging, and its immediate prospects seemed little better. Its public reputation had fallen, owing to the combined effects of a sharp public reaction against classical economics, an increased concern about current economic and social problems.