The 2008 crash has left all the established economic doctrines - equilibrium models, real business cycles, disequilibria models - in disarray. Part of the problem is due to Smith’s "veil of ignorance": individuals unknowingly pursue society’s interest and, as a result, have no clue as to the macroeconomic effects of their actions: witness the Keynes and Leontief multipliers, the concept of value added, fiat money, Engel’s law and technical progress, to name but a few of the macrofoundations of microeconomics. A good viewpoint to take bearings anew lies in comparing the post-Great Depression institutions with those emerging from Thatcher and Reagan’s economic policies: deregulation, exogenous vs. endoge- nous money, shadow banking vs. Volcker’s Rule. Very simply, the banks, whose lending determined deposits after Roosevelt, and were a public service became private enterprises whose deposits determine lending. These underlay the great moderation preceding 2006, and the subsequent crash.

The Economic Institutions of Capitalism

The End of History and the Last Man

Preface and acknowledgments Introduction 1. Explanation and dialectics Part I. Philosophy and Economics: 2. Philosophical anthropology 3. Economics 4. Exploitation, freedom and justice Part II. Theory of History: 5. Modes of production 6. Classes 7. Politics and the state 8. Ideologies 9. Capitalism, communism and revolution Conclusion references Index of names index of subjects.

Making Sense of Marx

Méthodes : Sur une série de 31 femmes présentant des varices périnéales d’origine extrasaphéniennes ayant bénéficié d’une exploration radiologique veineuse pelvienne et de l’embolisation des veines incontinentes nous avons étudié les résultats et les corrélations anatomo-clinique entre les varices et les signes cliniques de l’insuffisance veineuse pelvienne. Un sous-groupe B de 23 patientes présentant une insuffisance veineuse pelvienne et des signes cliniques a été comparé à un groupe A de 4 patientes qui ne présentaient pas d’insuffisance veineuse pelvienne à l’exploration. Nous avons choisi d’étudier 3 signes cliniques : la douleur pelvienne et la douleur des membres inférieurs survenant au début ou pendant les règles ainsi que la dyspareunie. La symptomatologie a été évaluée sur une échelle analogique de 0 à 10 et un score clinique (de 0 à 30) a été établi en ajoutant ces 3 chiffres.

http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF02973687.pdf

Références bibliographiques: La fibroscopie bronchique

The difficulty in defining a field for the so-called institutional economics is the uncertainty of meaning of an institution. Sometimes an institution seems to mean a framework of laws or natural rights within which individuals act like inmates. Sometimes it seems to mean the behavior of the inmates themselves. Sometimes anything additional to or critical of the classical or hedonic economics is deemed to be institutional. Sometimes anything that is "economic behavior" is institutional. Sometimes anything that is "dynamic" instead of "static," or a "process" instead of commodities, or activity instead of feelings, or mass action instead of individual action, or management instead of equilibrium, or control instead of laissez faire, seems to be institutional economics.

On Institutional Economics

Dictionnaire critique de la RSE

Polanyi analyse le deploiement historique d’une science economique "formelle" a partir du triptyque "marche-rarete-rationalite instrumentale". Il fait apparaitre ce triptyque, et le savoir qui s’y consacre, comme etant un sous-ensemble d’une question plus large que devrait analyser une science economique "substantielle" s’interessant au triptyque "besoin-nature-institution". Si l’on suit Polanyi dans sa critique fondamentale de l’economisme inherent au premier triptyque, on a plus de reticences a accepter sa solution de substitution, melange heterogene de naturalisme et d’institutionnalisme, d’essentialisme et d’historicisme. La these defendue dans l’article est qu’il faut etre plus polanyien que Polanyi et rechercher une economie de la raison pratique, fondement d’une science economique reintroduite a l’interieur des sciences sociales.

Économie et Rationalité : apports et limites de l'approche polanyienne

Quelle théorie hétérodoxe de l'acteur économique ?

Polanyi analyzes the historical deployment of a “formal” economic science starting from the “market-scarcity-instrumental rationality triptych.” This triptych, and the knowledge associated with it, is shown to be more than merely a “substantial” economic science’s interest in the triptych “need-nature-institution.” While we must agree with Polanyi that economism is ill-suited to the first triptych, we hesitate to accept his suggested alternative, a heterogeneous mixture of naturalism and institutionalism, essentialism and historicism.

Formal Economy, Substantive Economy, and Economism A Critical Interpretation of Karl Polanyi’s Distinction

This study aims to focus on the understanding corporate social responsibility (CSR), this “novel” form of corporate engagement, and evaluating its capacity to regulate capitalism. The authors advance the following thesis: CSR constitutes a new variety of regulation of capitalism which, to work efficiently, must be built on collective institutions (through both collective agreements and forms of coercion), instead of strictly contractual forms (based on inter-individual relations and voluntary commitments). Design/methodology/approach To support this thesis, the authors use Karl Polanyi’s theory, in particular his concept of “fictitious commodities”. Like Polanyi, we contend that CSR is a necessary reaction to the new “great transformation” brought about by the financialisation of our economy which is currently in crisis. Polanyi agrees that this kind of regulation can yield results only when based on collective institutions. In the last section of the study, the authors attempt to determine how a “conventionalist analysis” of CSR could help us to precisely describe this phenomenon and how it could be institutionalised by actors (both inside and outside companies). Findings This paper theoretically demonstrates the role of institutions in CSR processes and the need to weigh them theoretically. In this sense, the paper demonstrates the aporia of a strictly contractualist framework, not only for the understanding of the phenomenon, but for its deployment. Research limitations/implications This study proposes a theoretical framework, which is yet to be consolidated by empirical research. Practical implications The paper proposes salient elements of a public policy of responsibility. Social implications The paper proposes a methodological framework to go beyond a bilateral representation of the institutional framework and to produce a collective representation of the negotiation. Originality/value This is an original paper in its theoretical positioning and the implications it suggests for economic policy.

Richard Sobel

Papers

Dictionnaire critique de la RSE

Économie et Rationalité : apports et limites de l'approche polanyienne

Quelle théorie hétérodoxe de l'acteur économique ?

Formal Economy, Substantive Economy, and Economism A Critical Interpretation of Karl Polanyi’s Distinction

Corporate social responsibility (CSR): an institutionalist Polanyian analysis