Institutional Economics and the Theory of Social Value: Essays in Honor of Marc R. Tool PDF
Preview Institutional Economics and the Theory of Social Value: Essays in Honor of Marc R. Tool
Institutional Economics and the Theory of Social Value: Essays in Honor of Marc R. Tool Institutional Eeonomies and the Theory of Soeial Value: Essays in Honor of Mare R. Tool edited by Charles Michael Andres Clark Associate Professor of Economics St. John's University Jamaica, New York USA Springer Science+Business Media, LLC Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Institutional economics and the theory of social value : essays in honor of Marc R. Tool / edited by Charles Michael Andres Clark. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-94-010-4286-4 ISBN 978-94-011-0655-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-0655-9 1. Institutional economics. 2. Economics--Sociological aspects. 3. Social values. 4. Value. 5. Social choice. 6. Tool, Marc R. I. Tool, Marc R. 11. Clark, Charles Michael Andres. HB99.5.1564 1995 306.3--dc20 95-20398 CIP Copyright @ 1995 by Springer Science+Business Media New York Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1995 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1995 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, photo-copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. Printed on acid-free paper. Contents Contributing Authors vii Preface ix 1 Marc R. Tool's Contributions to Institutional Economics 1 Paul D. Bush 2 From Natural Value to Social Value 29 Charles M. A. Clark 3 Institutionalism and Value Theory: An Identity Crisis? 43 Gladys Parker Foster 4 The Urgency of Social Value Theory in Postmodern Capitalism 59 Doug Brown 5 Pragmatism as a Normative Theory of Social Value and Economic Ethics 75 Lewis E. Hill and Roger M. Traub 6 Efficiency versus Equity: A False Dichotomy? 85 Glen Atkinson 7 The Instrumental Value Principle and its Role 97 Warren J. Samuels 8 The Instrumental Efficiency of Social Value Theory 113 Edythe S. Miller vi 9 Instrumental Valuation in a Democratic Society 129 Philip A. Klein 10 Compulsive Shift or Cultural Blind Drift? Literary Theory, Critical Rhetoric, Feminist Theory and Institutional Economics 153 William T . Waller 11 Structural Change and the Compulsive Shift to Institutional Analysis 179 Charles J. Whalen 12 Beyond Technology to Democracy: The Tool Legacy in Instrumentalism 195 William M. Dugger 13 Marc Tool's Social Value Theory and the Family 209 Jacqueline B. Stanfield and J.R. Stanfield 14 Market Failure and Regulatory Refonn: Energy and Telecommunication Networks as a Case Study 221 Harry M. Trebing 15 Thorstein Veblen: Science, Revolution and the Persistence of Atavistic Continuities 241 Rick Tilman References 249 About the Authors 273 Author Index 277 Subject Index 281 Contn1JUting Authors Glen Atkinson Philip A. Klein Department of Economics Department of Economics University of Nevada-Reno Pennsylvania State University Reno, Nevada 89557-0016 University Park, PA 16802 Doug Brown Edythe S. Miller Department of Economics 580 Front Range Road Northern Arizona University Littleton, Colorado 80120 P.O. Box 15066 Flagstaff, Arizona 86011-5066 Warren J. Samuels Department of Economics Paul D. Bush Michigan State University Department of Economics East Lansing, Michigan 48824 California State University Fresno, CA 93740-0020 Jacqueline B. Stanfield Department of Sociology Charles M. A. Clark University of Northern Colorado Department of Economics Greeley, Colorado 80639 St. John's University Jamaica, New York 11439 J. R. Stanfield Department of Economics William M. Dugger Colorado State University Economics Department Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 University of Tulsa Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-3189 Rick Tilman Department of Public Gladys Parker Foster Administration 6468 S. Hudson St. University of Nevada-Las Vegas Littleton, Colorado 80121 4505 Maryland Parkway Box 456026 Lewis Hill Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-6026 Economics Department Texas Tech Roger Traub Box 41014 Department of Economics Lubbock, Texas 79409-1014 Texas Tech Lubbock, Texas 79409-1014 viii Harry Trebing Charles J. Whalen Department of Economics Jerome Levy Economics Institute Michigan State University Bard College East Lansing, Michigan 48824 Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504-50000 William T . Waller Department of Economics Hobart & William Smith Colleges Geneva, New York 14456 Preface Marc R. Tool, both through his writings and his editorship of the Journal of Economic Issues, has had a profound influence on institutional economics. Tool's efforts, in his own words, "has been to keep values on the agenda of economic inquiry," which is another way of saying "keep economic inquiry relevant." Tool's work on the theory of social value and instrumental valuation has helped to keep institutional economics focused on the core economic and social issues facing society, providing both a perspective from which to analyze the economy and a criteria for evaluating outcomes. This collection of essays is a testament to this legacy. Although these 15 chapters cover a wide and diverse range of topics, it is the common themes which are most striking: the inescapable necessity of values in economic discourse; the central role of valuation in economic activity; and most importantly, the requirement of democratic participation to achieve "efficient" solutions to the economic problem. These essays are offered to honor a body of work, a set of ideas, but mostly a man who, by directing economic inquiry to these core issues, has promoted "the continuity of human life and the noninvidious recreation of community through the instrumental use of knowledge. " The editor would like to thank all the participating authors for their contributions, and the numerous AFEE members who gave suggestions which helped to improve this volume, especially Warren Samuels, without whose early encouragement this book would not have been started, muchless completed, and Paul Bush, who undertook the enormous task of summarizing Tool's career and ideas, and who also gave considerable encouragement through out this project. The staffs at St. John's University, New York, and University College Cork, Cork, Ireland, both provided the author with considerable assistance and technical support, and thus deserve recognition. 1. MARC R. TOOL'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO INSTITIITIONAL ECONOMICS Paul D. Bush 1 After a period of over twenty years in which institutionalists found it virtually impossible to get their books published or their articles accepted by professional journals, the literature of institutional economics began to expand dramatically in the mid-1970s.2 The establishment in 1966 of the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE) fmally made it possible for institutionalists to meet on an annual basis to encourage institutionalist research and to provide a forum for its critique. The papers presented at the annual meetings of AFEE began to appear regularly in AFEE's Journal of Economic Issues, which was launched in 1967. In 1979, the Association for Institutional Thought (AFIT) was organized, creating a second professional forum for institutional thought. 3 Marc R. Tool was a founding member and the first president of AFIT. In his presidential address, "The Compulsive Shift to Institutional Analysis, " he set forth his optimistic belief that [t]he economist's abiding commitment to develop and apply theory which is relevant, directly or indirectly, to the great issues and problems of the day, is driving economists out of orthodoxy to positions similar to or compatible with the positions institutional economists have been evolving over this century.4 Whether or not the compulsive shift to institutional analysis as he conceives it is underway among orthodox economists, there can be no question of Marc Tool's commitment to the expansion of the institutionalist literature. His 2 contributions to institutional economics have been fundamental. Through his writings-particularly The Discretionary Economy (Tool 1979)-and through his ten-year editorship of the Journal of Economic Issues (1981-1991), Tool has offered both a programmatic agenda for the development of institutional thought and the editorial leadership necessary to encourage and refine the institutionalist research program in the United States and abroad. Any assessment of his contributions to institutional economics must consider both of these dimensions of his professional endeavors. Beginnings: The University of Denver and J. Fagg Foster In his remarks upon receipt of the Veblen-Commons Award, Tool made the following observation: Unlike the career of Gardner C. Means, among others, whose intellectual commitment to an institutionalist perspective was a gradual transformation extending over some years, my own self identification as an institutionalist was more in the nature of a "conversion" following exposure after just a few months, as a very young graduate student, to the ideas of John Fagg Foster at the University of Denver.s Tool was one of many students whose career was influenced by Foster's teaching.6 Beginning with his doctoral dissertation, Tool's scholarly contributions present a systematic documentation and extension of Foster's ideas. Since Foster wrote very little, much of what the profession at large knows of Foster's views is derived from Tool's interpretation of his work.7 But while Foster's ideas constitute the intellectual foundation upon which Tool bases his own work, due recognition must be given to the fact that Tool's writings incorporate creative contributions that move the institutionalist agenda beyond the point that Foster had taken it by the time of his death. Marcus Reed Tool, the third son in a family of four children, was born on August 3, 1921, in Murdock, Nebraska. His father was a retail lumber dealer. Hard times in rural Nebraska during the Great Depression forced the Tool family in 1935 to resettle in Denver, Colorado. Tool entered the University of Nebraska in 1939, but in 1941 he transferred to the University of Denver, where he pursued an undergraduate degree in economics and finance. The coursework for the B.S. degree was essentially finished in early 1943 when he was called to active duty in the armed forces.8 He volunteered for the U.S. 10th Mountain Division (infantry) and underwent mountain and ski combat training at Camp Hale, Colorado. In 1945 he served as a combat platoon leader in the 10th Mountain's Apennine and Po Valley campaigns in Northern Italy during the last three months of the war. In those campaigns the 10th Mountain Division suffered heavy losses in some of the
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