ABSTRACT
The forces that undermined American institutionalism were both doctrinal and institutional. In this chapter it will be argued that, in doctrinal terms at least, the circumstances are now favourable for a revived Veblenian institutionalism. The doctrinal forces that emerged to the detriment of institutionalism included positivism in philosophy, behaviourism in psychology, a reductionist rejection of emergent properties, and the breaking of the links between biology and the social sciences. These forces shook the foundations of institutionalism in the early part of the twentieth century. But remarkably, by the closing decades of that century, every one of these developments had been checked and reversed. We begin this chapter by briefly reviewing these changes. Later sections consider changes in economics and elsewhere that provide openings for a revived Veblenian institutionalism.
