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Today, there is no academic or sociocultural context in which Austrian Economics (AE) is described as being dominant. AE is and remains, for better or for worse, a heterodox current. In the United States, however, but probably nowhere else in the world, AE is heterodox without being invisible or inconsequential. American scholars for whom AE is their preferred paradigm have been able to participate actively in the sort of “discussions” that Arjo Klamer (2007, p. 4) wishes to encourage. They are taken seriously by fellow economists. The vitality of American AE has no equivalent in the rest of the world.¹ Obvious constraints of time and space prevent us from offering supporting evidence for this sweeping statement, but in this paper we propose to take a close look at the French case. AE has made few inroads in France. There was a brief period in the 1980s when it was the object of some short-lived enthusiasm; since then interest has waned, although there are indications that the tide might yet again be turning, and in fact, as compared to many other western European countries, France may turn out to be, all things being relative, a less infertile ground than might a priori be thought.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that Slawek Magala and the author have a great deal in common and that the author is putting the differences to an interesting use in the Erasmus Honors Program designed for the top students of all faculties of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. The model of education gaining the upper hand in contemporary universities should be balanced with the more fundamental humanist upbringing of students-citizens.

The paper has been written as an empirical report based on five years of participative observation, regular analysis and group discussion of student essays, and on the on-going application of qualitative techniques in designing a curriculum, running the program and joint evaluation of its intended effects with the main protagonist of the paper, namely the colleague Slawek Magala. The labels “traditionalist” and “postmodernist” have been codified according to the most frequent academic usage.

If Slawek manifests himself as a typical post-modernist who does not believe in stable identities, the author will be then the neo-traditionalist, who tries to connect identities to value choices and value choices to stable philosophies of virtue and moral choices. Both of them have multiple identities. Slawek is a Pole who has adapted the Dutch nationality. The author is a born Dutch who also carries an American passport. What brings them together intellectually, the author thinks, is a conviction that they have to bring culture into the scientific pursuits.

Very few academic studies pointed out that cultural repertoire of value qchoices involves an on-going cultural negotiation. The author has succeeded in legitimizing the concept of culture in the teaching and research. Other researchers may employ the notions of culture and value to develop a value-based approach to the economy. The paper helps to show that identities get stabilized, that people are in need of stabilizing their values, and with those their identities.

Clem Tisdell is one of Australia’s pre‐eminent economists who has made decisive contributions in several areas of economics, perhaps most notably development economics, environmental economics and natural resource economics. Tisdell is presently Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and is also a long‐standing member of the editorial advisory board of the International Journal of Social Economics. This interview, which falls in the tradition of Klamer, was recorded in his Brisbane home in November 1995 and seeks to explore Tisdell’s extraordinary career, the development of his thinking about economics in general and his prodigious research output in particular. Tisdell answered the questions in his customary quietly‐spoken and good‐humoured manner.

In this chapter, we present fragments of previously unpublished correspondence between Ludwig Lachmann and G. L. S. Shackle on the nature of institutions. This correspondence allows us to rationally reconstruct a theory of institutions, which extends Lachmann’s theoretical work. Shackle pointed out to Lachmann that institutions might be inputs into economic activities and that they themselves may be reproduced and transformed by these activities. Lachmann in turn contended that institutions consist of “instruments of interpretation.” We develop the concept of “instruments of interpretation” as a subset of institutions. These instruments are mental models and cognitive tools which are (1) inputs complementary to capital goods (2) jointly produced, reproduced, and transformed through economic activity. We suggest that in contrast to privately produced capital goods, parts of the institutional infrastructure are produced jointly as shared goods because the use of certain institutional elements is non-exclusive and non-subtractable; these elements – instruments of interpretation – are produced and reproduced by sharing and contributions through a process of joint production. This chapter explicitly connects two different but essential themes in Lachmann’s work: capital, and institutions. By combining these two strands of Lachmann’s work, we are able to demonstrate that there is a cross-complementarity between institutional orders and capital structures. This connection in turn provides a thicker understanding of the workings of markets.

A review essay on Postmodernism, Economics and Knowledge. Edited by Stephen Cullenberg, Jack Amariglio and David F. Ruccio. London: Routledge, 2001. p. 495. Most economists agree that economic knowledge has gradually increased as more facts and data have been accumulated to support (or reject) theories. That is, economic knowledge and progress of the discipline have benefited from the scientific method. While not disputing this modernist conception of historical progress in economics, the articles in the volume consistently urge a broader discourse in economics, suggesting that without an expanded discourse economics will, as Hutchison (1979) argues, be “destined for a somewhat ambiguous and problematic place in the spectrum of knowledge” (p. 4). This edited volume discusses and seeks to discover what the postmodernist movement can add to broad economic discourse.

Being a relatively newer member to the school of Austrian economics, I have seen the world of the economics profession and its many schools of thought through many lenses. Having this different perspective, I disagree with Pete Boettke on his ideas for ways to change the procedural way the Austrian school does economics. We need to be empirical about not just the economy, but of the history of economic thought. I believe the main goal should not be higher impact factors, but true progression of scientific knowledge. More focus on what we are doing, and less on counting articles.

It is proposed that social economics is in danger of losing its societal significance if economic analysis is reduced to one method only. Recently, prominent economists have emphasised the need to reintroduce the historical method into economic research work. A brief look is taken at some of the seminal examples of historical work in economics, particularly the German historical school. Other areas discussed include the scope and consequences of neglect of historical methods in contemporary economics; an outline of Schmoller′s work as an example of a historical social economist; and how Schmoller′s work compared with that of his contemporaries. The article concludes with a plea for a renewed emphasis on historical methods in economics.

Flows of ideas and paradigmatic wars are easier to trace through informal memoirs than methodological drill manuals. Sc’MOI’s emergence, flourishing, and decline are linked to a floating group of social scientists with the ambition to introduce managerial research into the humanist fold. Elective affinities linked David Boje and the undersigned to the Chicago economist Deirdre McCloskey, the Cardiff critical theory analyst Hugh Willmott, and the Lund organizational sciences guru Mats Alvesson. The drift from the International Academy of Business Disciplines to the Standing Conference on Management and Organizational Inquiry was accompanied by the Journal of Organizational Change Management. Marginal? Perhaps? But evolution picks up random cultural drifts and turns them into destinies of knowledge production. The narrative, humanist turn survived and kicks forward.

This chapter analyzes markets with an “infinite variety” of goods, such as large parts of the service economy and creative industries such as the book, film, and music market. I argue that the infinite variety of supply that characterizes such markets does not lead to discoordination, because of the emergence of cognitive institutions in the form of market categories, reference points such as exemplary goods, and instruments of interpretation which facilitate the (quality) coordination process. These cognitive institutions function as an extended mind of market participants and enable what is termed interpretative rationality, as distinct from calculative rationality. This interpretative rationality consists of the ability to recognize relevant differences and similarities between goods. These cognitive institutions, like the price system, are an emergent order which can be analyzed through the lens of Austrian economics. This chapter further demonstrates the potential convergence between particular strands of economic sociology and Austrian economics.