The Role of Institutions and the Current Crises of Capitalism: A Reply to Howard Sherman and John Henry
Author(s)
O’Hara, Phillip Anthony
Abstract
The article responds to critiques of the author’s book: Marx, Veblen and Contemporary Institutional Political Economy: Principles and Unstable Dynamics of Capitalism. The author puts forth his approach in the book- There are three reasons in support of my attempt to develop–or at least stimulate the progress of–a unified political economy approach. The first is that such a project is really critical in order to propel the future of social and political economy as a durable, progressive and evolving structure of theory, applications and policy. Put simply, I believe that without unity and diversity, political and social economy is under threat of extinction. The unity provides a method of analysis centering on institutions; that it be realistic, historical, humanistic, socioeconomic and relational in its approach, much like the work of Howard Sherman (1995), David Gordon (1998) and Geoffrey Hodgson (2001). And the diversity means both that each of the “schools” has at least one innovative element–and further, that all schools seek to innovate and promote new ideas and methods.
