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Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

There is hardly any other field of knowledge where there is more conflict or controversy between ideas and solutions proposed by theoreticians and statesmen than in politics. To date, adequate methodological tools have not been developed which enable the truth or validity of the liberal or conservative approaches to be tested. A new research programme using a simultaneous equilibrium versus disequilibrium approach is proposed which has full application in politics as well as in economics and the social sciences. This research programme shows the organic relationship between society, state, economy, money and form of government, and thus leads to a methodological unification of all the social sciences, to a new principia politica.

The economic science is again in a crisis and a new solution prolegomena to any future study in economics, finance and other social sciences has just been published by the International Institute of Social Economics in care of the MCB University Press in England. The roots of the major financial and economic problems of our time lie in an open conflict between theory and practice. In the 1930s and before the conflict was between classical theory and given realities. In the 1990s the conflict appears between the now prevailing modern, Keynesian theory and the actual realities. In addition during the twentieth century a great argument developed between the two schools of thought, argument which is not yet settled. In one sentence, the prolegomena tried and was successful to solve the conflict between theory and practice and the big doctrinal dispute of the twentieth century. It was a struggle of research and observation over half a century between 1947 and 1997.

The author argues that we must stop and take a look at what our insistence on human labour as the basis of our society is doing to us, and begin to search for possible alternatives. We need the vision and the courage to aim for the highest level of technology attainable for the widest possible use in both industry and services. We need financial arrangements that will encourage people to invent themselves out of work. Our goal, the article argues, must be the reduction of human labour to the greatest extent possible, to free people for more enjoyable, creative, human activities.

The paper argues in favor of reestablishing sociological or social economics as a legitimate discipline of economic science. Conspires toward undertaking analyses of the social co‐determination of economic behaviors, variables and systems. Suggests the need for incorporation of sociological/social economics in the existing semi‐official (JEL) taxonomy of economic fields and subjects. The argument for sociological economics can be made on two grounds: ontological or empirical‐historical and epistemological or theoretical‐methodological ones. The article bases the argument for sociological economics on the former, i.e., the empirical‐historical social co‐determination of the economy. The relations of sociological economics to sociology of economics are specified and the implications of sociological/social economics for modern economic science are also discussed.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

Economics and sociology are two different theoretical disciplines dealing with one and the same subject. The aim of the paper is to integrate the two paradigms into one framework of interpretation and analysis.

Economics is presented as a science that approaches human behaviour being subject to the omni‐present phenomenon of scarcity, assuming rationality and social independence of human actors. Sociology is presented as a science that interprets human behaviour as group behaviour. Groups are motivated to rank one another in terms of status. Integration must take place by relating the two analyses based on these paradigms.

The basic economic framework is about the relationship between preferences and scarce resources, determining the structure of allocation of goods. The basic sociological framework is about the relationship between the distribution of socially valued goods and the culture that gives goods their social meaning. A socio‐economic framework is about the relation between allocation, distribution, culture and preferences.

When applying the socio‐economic framework to real‐life phenomena both the economic and the social motives play a role in the explanation, which is not the case in applied economics and applied sociology.

Ideas regarding the basic character of humanity assume importance wherever people interact with one another — from the family to the political state, to the business enterprise. These conceptions, ranging from pessimism to optimism, from notions that evil, predatory competition on the one hand to goodness, co‐ operation and virtue on the other characterise the intrinsic disposition of people, derive from the culture to which the individual belongs, moulding his values and conditioning his behaviour. They not only affect the quality of human relations present in any collectivity, but exercise critical influence on the theories and practices of social control. The understanding of a range of social parameters is considerably enhanced when viewed from the perspective of prevailing cultural ideas about human nature itself.

Why isn't the four letter word beginning with f— used in the title of this conference.