Cultural Economics and Theory

David Hamilton has advanced heterodox economics by replacing intellectual concepts from orthodox economics that hinder us with concepts that help us. This book brings together the essential works of Hamilton.

<p>David Hamilton is a leader in the American institutionalist school of heterodox economics that emerged after WWII. This volume includes 25 articles written by Hamilton over a period of nearly half a century. In these articles he examines the philosophical foundations and practical problems of economics. The result of this is a unique institutionalist view of how economies evolve and how economics itself has evolved with them. Hamilton applies insight gained from his study of culture to send the message that human actions situated in culture determine our economic situation. <p>David Hamilton has advanced heterodox economics by replacing intellectual concepts from orthodox economics that hinder us with concepts that help us. In particular, Hamilton has helped replace equilibrium with evolution, make-believe with reality, ideological distortion of government with practical use of government, the economy as a product of natural law with the economy as a product of human law and, last, he has helped us replace the entrepreneur as a hero with the entrepreneur as a real person. <p>These articles provide an alternative to the self-adjusting market. They provide an explanation of how the interaction of cultural patterns and technology determine the evolutionary path of the economic development of a nation. This is not a simple materialist depiction of economic history as some Marxists have advocated, instead Hamilton treats technology and culture as endogenous forces, embedded and inseparable from each other and therefore, economic development. This volume will be of most interest and value to professional economists and graduate students who are looking for an in-depth explanation of the origins and significance of institutional economics.

Introduction by David Hamilton PART ONE-ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND CULTURAL ECONOMICS Introduction to Part One Section One: Economic Thought Veblen and Commons: A Case of Theoretical Convergence Hobson With a Keynesian Twist Keynes, Cooperation, and Economic Stability A Theory of the Social Origins of the Factors of Production Section Two: Cultural Economics Ceremonial Aspects of Corporate Organization The Entrepreneur as a Cultural Hero Why Is Institutional Economics Not Institutional?
Drawing the Poverty Line at a Cultural Subsistence Level The Great Wheel of Wealth PART TWO-STRUCTURAL POLICY AND ECONOMIC THEORY Introduction to Part Two Section One: Poverty Reciprocity, Productivity, and Poverty The Political Economy of Poverty The U.S. Economy: Disadvantages of Having Taken the Lead The Myth Is Not the Reality: Income Maintenance and Welfare The Paper War on Poverty Welfare Reform in the Reagan Years Section Two: Consumption What Has Evolutionary Economics to Contribute to Consumption Theory? Institutional Economics and Consumption Thorstein Veblen as the First Professor of Marketing Science Section Three: Critique of Orthodoxy On Staying for the Canoe Building, Or Why Ideology Is Not Enough Ceremonialism as the Dramatization of Prosaic Technology Economics: Science or Legend? The Cure May Be the Cancer Section Four: Elements of Institutionalism Is Institutional Economics Really "Root and Branch" Economics? Rickshaws, Treadmills, Galley Slaves, and Chernobyl Technology and Institutions Are Neither