Are social costs the outcome of struggles over truth?

Berger, Sebastian

Abstract

© 2020, © 2020, Journal of Economic Issues / Association for Evolutionary Economics. Abstract: This article critically examines the institutional economics theory of social costs by way of reviewing The Dark Places of Business Enterprise: Reinstating Social Costs in Institutional-Economics (2019). In particular, the article assesses the proposal to re-root institutional economics in the theoretical synthesis of “Veblen-Kapp-Mirowski” to better understand the social costs of neoliberalism. One of the findings is that while such a synthesis seems justified on the grounds of significant commonalities and the merits of deeper insights, it nevertheless runs into difficulties due to divergent philosophical foundations. One of the conclusions is that further philosophic clarification is needed on how an alternative economy would understand the relationship between “social costs” and Truth.

• Journal Article Type: Review
• Acceptance Date: Apr 20, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Jun 16, 2020
• Publication Date: Jun 16, 2020
• Deposit Date: Apr 24, 2020
• Journal: Journal of Economic Issues
• Print ISSN: 0021-3624
• Electronic ISSN: 1946-326X
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 54
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 525-534
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.2020.1759021
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/5927976
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/mjei20/current