Download Free Economic Theory And Social Change Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Economic Theory And Social Change and write the review.

This book is a discourse on modelling Man in a social context. Its focus is on economic main-stream theory in its capacity to handle basic problems such as uncertainty, social dynamics and ethics. The point of departure is a systematic critique of the specific methodology of economics and its axiomatic structure. The ultimate aim is to develop an economic theory for a socially sustainable society. Economic Theory and Social Change analyses the foundation of economic market theory in relation to its social implications. On rejecting the axiomatic structure of the market theory Hasse Ekstedt and Angelo Fusari analyse the concept of growth and uncertainty with respect to a more realistic modelling of man, The book also addresses central political problems and their potential solutions, including permanent unemployment, distribution of income, the interaction of real and financial growth, money and the credit system. In seeking objective values to help to obtain a socially sustainable society, the book traces a tentative revision of economic and social thought based on a deepening of some crucial features of modern economies and societies. These features include innovation, the connected flows of uncertainty, entrepreneurship, and their role in fuelling and characterizing economic growth and development. This book will be of interest to postgraduate students and researchers of Economics, particularly to those focussing on Economic Theory and Political Economy.
This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.
. . . the book is excellent in setting out and explaining a fundamental critique of economics one moreover that has been missed by most other current critics of the field. Making this case is an achievement. Hopefully, it will have a greater impact than its author probably expects. Journal of Cultural Economics Economics evolved by perfecting the taking of culture out of its reductionist and virtual world. But culture has recently been reintroduced, both as a sphere of application for an otherwise unchanging methodology and as a weak form of acknowledging that the economic alone is inadequate as the basis even for explaining the economy. This volume is an essential critical starting point for understanding the changing relationship between economics and culture and in offering a more satisfactory and stable union between the two. Ben Fine, University of London, UK Economics, Culture and Social Theory examines how culture has been neglected in economic theorising and considers how economics could benefit by incorporating ideas from social and cultural theory. Orthodox economics has prompted a long line of cultural criticism that goes back to the origins of economic theory and extends to recent debates surrounding postmodernism. William A. Jackson discusses the cultural critique of economics, identifies the main arguments, and assesses their implications. Among the topics covered are relativism and realism, idealism and materialism, agency and structure, hermeneutics, semiotics, and cultural evolution. Drawing from varied literatures, notably social and cultural theory, the book stresses the importance of culture for economic behaviour and looks at the prospects for a renewed and culturally informed economics. The book will be invaluable to heterodox economists and to anyone interested in the links between culture and the economy. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, arguing against the isolation of economics, and will therefore hold wide appeal for social scientists working in related fields, as well as for economists specialising in cultural economics and economic methodology.
Economics as a Social Science is a highly readable critique of economic theory, based on a wide range of research, that endeavors to restore economics to its proper role as a social science. Contrary to conventional economic theory, which assumes that people have no free will, this book instead bases economics on the realistic assumption that human beings can choose; that we are complex beings affected by emotion, custom, habit, and reason; and that our behavior varies with circumstances and times. It embraces the findings of history, psychology, and other social sciences and the insights from great literature on human behavior as opposed to the rigidity set by mathematical axioms that define how economics is understood and practiced today. Andrew M. Kamarck demonstrates that only rough accuracy is attainable in economic measurement, and that understanding an economy requires knowledge from other disciplines. The canonical hypotheses of economics (perfect rationality, self-interest, equilibrium) are shown to be inadequate (and in the case of "equilibrium" to be counterproductive to understanding the forces that dominate the economy), and more satisfactory assumptions provided. The market is shown to work imperfectly and to require appropriate institutions to perform its function reasonably well. Further, Kamarck argues that self-interest does not always lead to helping the general interest. Economics as a Social Science examines and revises the fundamental assumptions of economics. Because it avoids jargon and explains terms carefully, it will be of interest to economics majors as well as to graduate students of economics and other social sciences, and social scientists working in government and the private sector. Andrew M. Kamarck is former Director, Economic Development Institute, the World Bank.
This book is an introduction to Max Weber’s ambitious comparative study of the sociological and institutional foundations of the modern economic and social order. In this work originally published in German in 1920, Weber discusses the analytical methods of sociology and, at the same time, presents a devastating critique of prevailing sociological theory and of its universalist, determinist underpinnings. None of Weber’s other writings offers the reader such a grasp of his theories; none displays so clearly his erudition, the scope of his interests, and his analytical powers.
This eagerly anticipated new book from Tony Lawson contends that economics can profit from a more explicit concern with ontology (enquiry into the nature of existence) than has been its custom. By admitting that economics is not exactly a picture of health at the moment, Lawson hopes that we can move away from the bafflingly intransigent belief that economics is at its core reliant upon mathematical modelling. This maths-envy is the reason why economics is in a state of such disarray. Far from being a polemic against the mainstream, this excellent new book is concerned that if economics is to be saved from itself then there must be a realistic dialogue between the classical heterodox fields. Of interest to philosophers, sociologists and social scientists as well as economists, this comprehensive, logical book is a vital contribution to an important debate.
Shows how economics was once rich, diverse, multidimensional and pluralistic. Details how political economy became economics through the desocialisation and dehistoricisation of the dismal science.
Activity theory is an interdisciplinary approach to human sciences that originates in the cultural-historical psychology school, initiated by Vygotsky, Leont'ev, and Luria. It takes the object-oriented, artifact-mediated collective activity system as its unit of analysis, thus bridging the gulf between the individual subject and the societal structure. This 1999 volume includes 26 chapters on activity theory by authors from ten countries. In Part I of the book, central theoretical issues are discussed from different points of view. Some topics addressed in this part are epistemology, methodology, and the relationship between biological and cultural factors. Part II is devoted to the acquisition and development of language. This part includes a chapter that analyzes writing activity in Japanese classrooms, and a case study of literacy skills of a man with cerebral palsy. Part III contains chapters on play, learning, and education, and Part IV addresses the meaning of technology and the development of work activities. The final part covers issues of therapy and addiction.
In this study, Don Ross explores the relationship of economics to other branches of behavioral science, asking, in the course of his analysis, under what interpretation economics is a sound empirical science. The book explores the relationships between economic theory and the theoretical foundations of related disciplines that are relevant to the day-to-day work of economics—the cognitive and behavioral sciences. It asks whether the increasingly sophisticated techniques of microeconomic analysis have revealed any deep empirical regularities—whether technical improvement represents improvement in any other sense. Casting Daniel Dennett and Kenneth Binmore as its intellectual heroes, the book proposes a comprehensive model of economic theory that, Ross argues, does not supplant, but recovers the core neoclassical insights, and counters the caricaturish conception of neoclassicism so derided by advocates of behavioral or evolutionary economics. Because he approaches his topic from the viewpoint of the philosophy of science, Ross devotes one chapter to the philosophical theory and terminology on which his argument depends and another to related philosophical issues. Two chapters provide the theoretical background in economics, one covering developments in neoclassical microeconomics and the other treating behavioral and experimental economics and evolutionary game theory. The three chapters at the heart of the argument then apply theses from the philosophy of cognitive science to foundational problems for economic theory. In these chapters, economists will find a genuinely new way of thinking about the implications of cognitive science for economics, and cognitive scientists will find in economic behavior, a new testing site for the explanations of cognitive science.
Originally published in 1951, "Social Choice and Individual Values" introduced "Arrow's Impossibility Theorem" and founded the field of social choice theory in economics and political science. This new edition, including a new foreword by Nobel laureate Eric Maskin, reintroduces Arrow's seminal book to a new generation of students and researchers."Far beyond a classic, this small book unleashed the ongoing explosion of interest in social choice and voting theory. A half-century later, the book remains full of profound insight: its central message, 'Arrow's Theorem, ' has changed the way we think."--Donald G. Saari, author of "Decisions and Elections: Explaining the Unexpected "