Two Essays Towards a Radical Interpretation of Original Institutionalism
Based on a fundamental reading of Thorstein Veblen’s work through the
Radical Institutionalism approach, the Dissertation seeks to situate it in relation to other
selected schools of thought. Therefore, the work recaptures the approaches of
Neoclassical, Marxist, Post-Keynesian and Institutionalist schools from two different
perspectives: a moral one and a political one. On the one hand, the work investigates
how each of these traditions sees human beings inserted in the economical world: in
other words, how and why we act when confronted with our economic-life decisions.
On the other hand, the work exposes how these schools of thought cope with market
order. It concludes that neoclassical economics has a moral and political reading on
contemporary world that works as support for the status quo. Post-Keynesianism,
although distant from the former acritical and idolatrous approach, does not have an
approach that can be characterized as antagonistic to the previous one. Marxists and
Institutionalists despite having differences on their approach are both strongly critical to
the ontological perception of the human being and to the political institutions imposed
by the prevailing socioeconomic structure.