Baldwin Ranson

AFEE or AFIT: Which Represents Institutional Economics?

It is difficult to know what to think of institutional economics. There are those who continue to maintain that it is dead and buried. Others think it lives, and they struggle to identify its principles and protagonists. Still others, not concerned with labels, have been willing to accept the activities of the Association for Evolutionary Economics as representing institutional economics. But the recent formation of an organization calling itself the Association for Institutional Thought (AFIT) makes more urgent than ever the question of what institutional economics is and which group represents it. Many scholars who hope to develop an influential alternative to orthodox economics view the new organizational with misgivings. They sense a criticism of AFEE in its very formation, and they fear that fragmenting the already small and weak heterodox movement will produce negative results. As far as results to date are concerned, probably members of both associations would agree on the present situation: Although AFEE has existed for thirteen years, there is today neither a recognized or growing body of institutional principles nor a group of institutional economists influential in policy formulation. In short, institutional economics is not a viable alternative to mainstream economics. Whether AFEE could or

Confronting Foster's Wildest Claim: "Only the Instrumental Theory of Value Can Be Applied!"

Abstract The Instrumental criterion of judgment — in vulgar terms, “what works” — is universally recognized as applicable to and appropriate for answering questions about means for achieving given practical ends. Few accept it as appropriate for choosing means to moral or ethical ends, and even fewer accept it as appropriate for choosing all ends as well as all means. Such is Foster’s position, carefully expounded in his newly available lecture notes on value theory. This paper rebuts critics, tries to clarify the meaning of Foster’s theory, establishes the grounds on which it rests, and argues for its accuracy and usefulness.

Dewey and Ayres, Webb and DeGregori: At Odds over Technical Terms

The recent exchange between James Webb and Thomas DeGregori (2002 and 2003) demonstrates the degree to which dissident economists are unable to use their technical names efficiently. They debate definitions of and relations among science, technology, and common sense. They debate continuity, discontinuity, and the nature and process of social evolution. Both are uncomfortable with the term institution. They show no movement toward a meeting of minds on names or on substance. My comment seeks to mitigate this terminological problem. I propose to extract provisionally acceptable technical names from distinctions made by Thorstein Veblen in The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts. After presenting each definition, I consider how acceptable it might be to a hypothetical panel consisting of John Dewey, Clarence Ayres, James Webb, and Thomas DeGregori. Distinctions generally come in pairs: black/white, open/shut, friend/enemy. The paired terms may be considered as different in kind, mutually exclusive, a matter of either/or. But when applied to actual situations, middle positions may appear that are differences of degree. Coal and snow are neither pure black nor pure white; they are more or less close to opposite end positions. The Latin term continuum (plural, continua) serves in English to identify all possible positions between a pair of terms. I signify either/or distinctions with a slash, as in mind/body, and I signify more-or-Iess distinctions with opposing arrowheads, as in black< >white. Veblen was a master of differences of degree when analyzing social processes. He opened The Instinct of Workmanship by delimiting the type of behavior he intended to analyze. His first distinction was between tropismatic and instinctive behavior (1-5; numbers in parentheses refer to pages in the Norton edition of this study, first published in 1914). He posited a continuum between 100 percent tropismatic, or automatic, behavior and 100 percent instinctive, or teleological, behavior. We need not take a position on his theory of instincts to agree to focus our analysis on distinctively human, nonautomatic behavior. I call this portion of our scientific subject matter intentional behavior. Veblen proceeded to subdivide intentional behaviors, along with systems of belief that guide them, into further continua, the endpoints of which provide our technical names. All but one of these continua deal with specific cases of intentional behavior or belief. That unique continuum asserts that any specific case is demonstrably systematized on more-or-Iess warranted grounds. He saw this distinction running from 100

John Fagg Foster

(1981). John Fagg Foster. Journal of Economic Issues: Vol. 15, The Papers of J. Fagg Foster, pp. 852-856.