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From the late eighteenth century, economics revolved largely around the market. At the end of the nineteenth century, the everyday activities of developing corporations modified the usual field of economic investigations. However, economists were slow off the mark and seemed reluctant to give a proper place to this new player in their theoretical schemes. In particular, they had difficulties to grasp the managerial nature of the firm. Thorstein Veblen and John Commons offered the first comprehensive history of the modern business company. Little interested in the anatomy of the corporate leviathan, they rather analysed its double-sided spirit, both pecuniary and industrial. By doing so, they cast important thoughts on the business firm as an institution to be taken into account by economists. Yet, they failed to shift economic theory from its prevailing market orientation and to acknowledge the growing effects of the managerial rationality within the economic realm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First, Veblen's distinction between industrial and pecuniary employments with special regard to speculation and Keynes´ view of financial markets are introduced. Second, a dominant fundamentalist, market efficiency and a heterodox speculation paradigm of financial markets are distinguished. Third, eleven proposals for financial market reform (e.g. narrow banking) are proposed. Finally, it is asked: What are the methodological consequences of the financial crisis for the prevailing scientific and ideological habits of thought? A more hermeneutical and historical approach is necessary to which Reginald Hansen contributed in his important dissertation on the debate on method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main thrust of the current nonprofit economics literature is that nonprofit organizations exist to correct market failures. However, the methodological individualism of the market failure theories of nonprofit organizations makes these theories unable to take account of the complex institutional embeddedness of the nonprofit sector. To fill this gap, the present paper outlines an approach of holistic nonprofit economics by building upon the insights from Thorstein Veblen's institutionalism and Ervin Laszlo's contribution to the general systems theory. From the Veblenian dichotomy, holistic nonprofit economics benefits by recognizing the limitations of the profit motive in ensuring a high quality of community life. From the systems theory conception of the multi-level universe, holistic nonprofit economics borrows the insight that the key to a high quality of community life is in the integration between man, society, and nature. Accordingly, holistic nonprofit economics locates the role of the nonprofit sector in ensuring this integration by counteracting the profit motive. Thus, in contrast to the market failure theories of nonprofit organizations, holistic nonprofit economics generates a research program exploring the embeddedness of the nonprofit sector into the encompassing societal and natural systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the normative nature of institutions. The starting point of my investigation is Kahneman, Knetsch and Thaler’s notion of the reference transaction from which I derive a recursive relationship between normative judgements and social practices (i.e. regular, routinised actions in a social group), an implication of which I call the “self-justification of practices”. Drawing on John Dewey, I demonstrate how prevailing practices influence normative standards and thus how institutions become normative entities. I then show how, despite the conservative bias of normative standards, institutional change comes about. Finally, I enquire into the possibility of normative critique of prevailing practices and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nation’s recent experience with war and economic crisis would hardlyshock Thorstein Veblen. America’s most original radical voice, Veblen has much to teach us about the common predatory origins of war and finance and the tragic consequences of their pursuit. This brief survey of the contemporary relevance of Veblen’s observations about war and economic collapse emphasizes the political foundation of his critical theory. Though widely regarded as an economic thinker, Veblen’s critique of modern business enterprise and its alliance with government rests on an essentially political dissection of what he termed barbaric exploit, the ancient root of war, power politics, the state, and latter day financial conquest. For Veblen, barbarism did not end with the coming of liberal democracy, rule of law or capitalism; its habits of exploit, waste and destruction go marching on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The life, work, and appraisal of Thorstein Veblen reveal well the defense mechanisms employed by society's dominant strata to counter ideological challenges to the established order. They also offer insight into the sociology of reputation and, more narrowly, the psychology of Veblen's biographers, who have frequently sought to enhance their own reputations at the expense of his. Central to an understanding of Veblen's sullied reputation is Joseph Dorfman, whose voluminous biography of Veblen projects Dorfman's own cultural demons and insecurities onto his subject, at the same time as it has influenced the uncritical views of later scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]