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Progressive radicalism before the left -- The French revolution and the original left -- Thomas Paine and the rights of man -- Socialism's wrong responses to the right problems -- Marxism's wrong turnings: class war and wholesale collectivization -- Down the slippery slope to totalitarianism -- Keeping left: in defence of democracy and individual rights -- After Vietnam: the left descends into cultural relativism -- Final full turn: the left condones reactionary religion -- Two open letters to friends -- Capitalism and beyond: toward a new old left.

The Left is in crisis. Despite global economic turbulence, left-wing political parties in many countries have failed to make progress in part because they have grown too ideologically fragmented. Today, the term Left is associated with state intervention and public ownership, but this has little in common with the original meaning of the term. What caused what we mean by the Left to change, and how has that hindered progress? With 'Wrong Turnings', Geoffrey M. Hodgson tracks changes in the meaning of the Left and offers suggestions for how the Left might reclaim some of its core values.

A few centuries ago, capitalism set in motion an explosion of economic productivity. Markets and private property had existed for millennia, but what other key institutions fostered capitalism's relatively recent emergence? Until now, the conceptual toolkit available to answer this question has been inadequate, and economists and other social scientists have been diverted from identifying these key institutions. With Conceptualizing Capitalism, Geoffrey M. Hodgson offers readers a more precise conceptual framework. Drawing on a new theoretical approach called legal institutionalism, Hodgson establishes that the most important factor in the emergence of capitalism - but also among the most often overlooked - is the constitutive role of law and the state. While private property and markets are central to capitalism, they depend upon the development of an effective legal framework. Applying this legally grounded approach to the emergence of capitalism in eighteenth - century Europe, Hodgson identifies the key institutional developments that coincided with its rise. That analysis enables him to counter the widespread view that capitalism is a natural and inevitable outcome of human societies, showing instead that it is a relatively recent phenomenon, contingent upon a special form of state that protects private property and enforces contracts. After establishing the nature of capitalism, the book considers what this more precise conceptual framework can tell us about the possible future of capitalism in the twenty-first century, where some of the most important concerns are the effects of globalization, the continuing growth of inequality, and the challenges to America's hegemony by China and others

"In From Pleasure Machines to Moral Communities, Hodgson casts a critical eye on neoclassical individualism, its foundations and flaws, and turns to recent insights from research on the evolutionary bases of human behavior. He focuses his attention on the evolution of morality, its meaning, why it came about, and how it influences human attitudes and behavior. This more nuanced understanding sets the stage for a fascinating investigation of its implications on a range of pressing issues drawn from diverse environments, including the business world and crucial policy realms like health care and ecology. This book provides a valuable complement to Hodgson's earlier work with Thorbjørn Knudsen on evolutionary economics in Darwin's Conjecture, extending the evolutionary outlook to include moral and policy-related issues."--Publisher's website

part Part I Introduction -- chapter 1 Nature and scope -- chapter 2 Agency and structure -- chapter 3 Objections and explanations -- part Part II Darwinism and the Victorian social sciences -- chapter 4 Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer and the human species -- chapter 5 Precursors of emergence and multiple-level evolution -- part Part III Veblenian institutionalism -- chapter 6 The beginnings of Veblenian institutionalism -- chapter 7 The Darwinian mind of Thorstein Veblen -- chapter 8 Veblen's evolutionary institutionalism -- chapter 9 The instinct of workmanship and the pecuniary culture -- chapter 10 A wrong turning -- Science and the machine process -- chapter 11 Missed connections -- Creative synthesis and emergent evolution -- chapter 12 The launch of institutional economics and the loss of its Veblenian ballast -- part Part IV Institutionalism into the wilderness -- chapter 13 John R. Commons and the tangled jungle -- chapter 14 Wesley Mitchell and the triumph of macroeconomics -- chapter 15 The maverick institutionalism of Frank Knight -- chapter 16 The evolution of Clarence Ayres -- chapter 17 The Ayresian dichotomies -- Ayres versus Veblen -- chapter 18 The decline of institutional economics -- part Part V Beginning the reconstruction of institutional economics -- chapter 19 The potential revival of Veblenian institutionalism -- chapter 20 On individuals and institutions -- chapter 21 Conclusion and beginning.

In arguably his most important book to date, Hodgson calls into question the tendency of economic method to try and explain all economic phenomena by using the same catch-all theories and dealing in universal truths. He argues that you need different theories to analyze different economic phenomena and systems and that historical context must be taken into account.Hodgson argues that the German Historical School was key in laying the foundations for the work of the pioneer institutional economists, who themselves are gaining currency today; and that the growing interest in this school

Aunque el término institución tiene una larga historia en las ciencias sociales, aún no existe consenso en torno a su definición. El autor primero muestra las ambigüedades que presentan los planteamientos de North al limitar el concepto de institución a los sistemas de reglas formales que rigen a las organizaciones. Luego, para superar estas dificultades, propone un concepto más amplio que tiene en cuenta la base informal de todo comportamiento estructurado y duradero.

Ill's theory of the taxation of land -- Kant's critique of judgment -- Some neglected points in the theory of socialism -- Böhm-Bawerk's definition of capital and the source of wages -- The food supply and the price of wheat -- Review of the land-systems of British India by B.H. Baden-Powell -- Review of der Parlamentarismus, die Volksgesetzgebung und die Socialdemokratie by Karl Kautsky -- The economic theory of women's dress -- Review of misére de la philosophie by Karl Marx and review of socialisme et science positive by Enrico Ferri -- Review of Einfuhrung in den Socialismus by Richard Calwer -- Review of essais sur la conception matérialiste de l'histoire by Antonio Labriola -- Review of die marxistische socialdemokratic by Max Lorenz -- Review of über einige Grundfragen der Socialpolitik und der Volkswirtschaftslehre by Gustav Schmoller -- Review of aristocracy and evolution : a study of the rights, the origins, and the social functions of the wealthier classes by William H. Mallock -- Why is economics not an evolutionary science? -- The instinct of workmanship and the irksomeness of labor : the beginnings of ownership -- The barbarian status of women -- The preconceptions of economic science, parts I, II, III (1899-1900) -- Review of the development of English thought : a study in the economic interpretation of history by Simon N. Patten -- The theory of the leisure class : an economic study in the evolution of institutions, Chapter 8 -- Mr. Cummings's strictures on "the theory of the leisure class" -- Review of social laws : an outline of sociology by Gabriel Tarde -- Industrial and pecuniary employments -- Gustav Schmoller's economics -- Review of psychologie économique by Gabriel Tarde -- Review of Der moderne Kapitalismus by Werner Sombart -- Review of pure sociology : a treatise concerning the origin and spontaneous development of society by Lester Ward -- The theory of business enterprise, Chapter 7 -- The place of science in modern civilization -- The socialist economics of Karl Marx and his followers, Parts I & 2 (1906-7) -- Professor Clark's economics -- On the nature of capital, Parts I & II -- The evolution of the scientific point of view -- Fisher's capital and income (1908) and fisher's rate of interest -- The limitations of marginal utility -- The mutation theory and the blond race -- The instinct of workmanship, and the state of the industrial arts (1914), preface, chapter 1, and Part of Chapter 2

This focuses on Veblen's writings up to 1914 in which he crafts his core concepts, develops his theoretical position both constructively and critically, and applies analysis topics including the evolution of human institutions and the economic dynami.

Of paramount importance to the natural sciences, the principles of Darwinism, which involve variation, inheritance, and selection, are increasingly of interest to social scientists as well. But no one has provided a truly rigorous account of how the principles apply to the evolution of human society-until now.In Darwin's Conjecture, Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen reveal how the British naturalist's core concepts apply to a wide range of phenomena, including business practices, legal systems, technology, and even science itself. They also critique some prominent objections to applying D

J.W. Stoelhorst (2007), 'The Naturalist View of Universal Darwinism: An Application to the Evolutionary Theory of the Firm', in Geoffrey Hodgson (ed) (ed.), The Evolution of Economic Institutions: A Critical Reader, Chapter 13, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 233-51 -- Geoffrey M. Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen (2006), 'Why We Need a Generalized Darwinism, and Why Generalized Darwinism is Not Enough', Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 61, 1-19 -- Geoffrey M. Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen (2006), 'The Nature and Units of Social Selection', Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 16, 477-89 -- Richard Nelson (2006) 'Evolutionary Social Science and Universal Darwinism', Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 16, 491-510 -- Geoffrey M. Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen (2008), 'Information, Complexity and Generative Replication', Biology and Philosophy, 23, 47-65

For much of the 20th century, rivalry existed between centrally planned and capitalist solutions to the problems of economic stability and growth. This changed in the 1990s. In that same decade, the period of rapid growth of the Japanese economy came to an end and by the close of the century, the American model of capitalism was seen as the only possible option. Modern capitalism has achieved spectacular rates of innovation and growth but the system is still menaced by financial crises and economic recessions. Furthermore, there is an unacknowledged diversity of capitalist systems. Contributor