From Principle of Pricing to Pricing of Principle: Rationality and Irrationality in the Economic History of Douglass North

Extract

The current intellectual climate is marked by a dual retreat, faltering and uneven, from the excesses of neo-liberalism and postmodernism. First, the idea that the world is, and should be made as far as possible, like a perfect market, virtualism for Carrier and Miller (1998), is losing ground, giving way to an understanding organized around the more-or-less pervasive presence and influence of market imperfections and the need for the non-market to correct them. Second, obsessive interpretative and relativist deconstruction of the world associated with the cultural turn across the social sciences is increasingly conceding to a renewal of interest in material culture—how reality is both construed and created. Over the past decade, the extraordinary rise to prominence of two concepts in particular has symbolized these developments. In the lead, serving as a filter for a highly diverse range of approaches and topics, is globalization.For brief overview, see Fine (2002a, ch. 2; 2002b). Close behind in timing, weight, and scope is social capital, the counterpart in most respects to globalization at the national or lower levels of community.See Fine (2001) for a comprehensive and critical account.