This manifesto begins by briefly recalling the work of the leading institutional economists of the 1920s and 1930s, when institutional economics last reached its peak of influence. The principles developed by the Texas, Wisconsin, and Columbia institutionalists created the foundations on which an institutional economics of the future can be built. Two themes united these three centers of institutional thought: criticism of economic orthodoxy and support of government to achieve social goals. We are in a new era today, in which both the institutional framework and economic orthodoxy have changed. We need to emphasize those same themes developed by the earlier institutional economists, in four ways. 1. Analysis of the changed institutional structure of contemporary capitalism. 2. Critical analysis of mainstream high theory in economics that accompanied the new economy. 3. Development of new instruments of public policy to meet the economic and social problems of this new era. 4. Development of an empirically based research method that challenges the metaphysics of mathematical models.
