Comparison of Marxism and institutionalism.

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Comparison of Marxism and institutionalism.

It is our view that Marxism and institutionalism have much in common--and that it is useful in the United States to stress the common ground among all critical economists. We also recognize that there are different viewpoints within each of these paradigms. There are liberal and radical institutionalists, but there are also official and independent, critical Marxists. By official Marxism, we mean that version of Marx that was held by the Soviet Union and all of the Communist parties during the Stalin era (1928-1953). We recognize that liberal institutionalists and official Marxists have little or nothing in common, but we believe that modern, radical institutionalists and modern, critical (nonofficial) Marxists have much in common. It should be stressed that the dichotomy mentioned within each school is a drastic oversimplification. In reality, there is a wide spectrum of views within each school. We use a dichotomy only to highlight certain differences within each school.

The Questions

Of the two coauthors, the radical institutionalist will give the institutionalist answers to a set of questions, while the Marxist will give the critical Marxist answers to the same set of questions. We will then jointly compare the answers. The questions include:

I. Fundamental Relationships

A. What are the most important relationships in society?

B. How are technology and ideas related?

C. Is there class conflict?

D. How is class related to technology and ideas?

E. Can all social explanations be reduced to technology? To ideas? To class?

F. What is the role of the individual?

II. Dynamics

A. Can the social sciences be ahistorical?

B. Is there social evolution?

C. Is evolution teleological and predetermined?

D. What causes historical evolution?

E. Is evolution a simple, linear process?

The mere fact that questions like these can be formulated is important. Since these questions are meaningful and significant for both Marxism and institutionalism, the two clearly share certain common understandings of society. Otherwise, meaningful and significant questions like these could not be asked of the two. The two schools would simply talk past each other. Of course, much of that does occur, but a case can be made that this is a consequence of a lack of fundamental understanding of their own school of thought by those who do the talking past. It is that set of common understandings that allow us to ask questions of each other that needs to be explored. Of course, differences exist as well and should not be ignored, but enough internecine squabbling has taken place.

On the Marxist side, as noted above, the answers given are those of modern, critical, independent Marxists. These answers are quite different than those that would have been given by official Marxists in the time of Stalin or even Brezhnev.

On the institutionalist side, the answers formulated come from the radical institutionalist tradition, which traces itself back to Thorstein Veblen |see Dugger 1989, 1992~. The answers are not necessarily those that would be given by a liberal institutionalist in the Veblen-Ayres ...

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