Cincinnati Business Daily

Karl Marx and New Institutionalism?

Did Karl Marx have a theory or anything to do with New Institutionalism?

Public Comments

1. New institutionalism or neoinstitutionalism describes social theory that focuses on developing a sociological view of institutions--the way they interact and the way they affect society. It provides a way of viewing institutions outside of the traditional views of economics by explaining why so many businesses end up having the same organizational structure (isomorphism) even though they evolved in different ways, and how institutions shape the behavior of individual members. Old Institutionalism in the writings of John Dewey, Thorstein Veblen, John Commons, and others, and which has been further extrapolated by such various scholars as Donald Davidson, Richard Rorty, Amartya Sen, Donald McCloskey, Warren Samuels, Daniel Bromley, EJ Mishan, Yngve Ramstad, and others. Proponents of the older institutionalism are strongly opposed to new institutionalism, most saliently in the manner in which new institutionalism seeks to explain institutional change as merely another instance of maximization. Instead, old institutionalism seeks to articulate reasons for institutional change in terms of social and political volition. Marx certainly had an influence on the Institutionalist School of Political Economy, represented by such names as Thorsten Veblen, John R. Commons, Adolf Berle, John Kenneth Galbraith, Henry George, John Dewey, and Herbert Simon.