ABSTRACT

This is a short and blunt article in which Hamilton explains that Reaganomics was merely an application to our economic problems of more of that old-time religion (neoclassical economics) when, in fact, the old-time religion is the cause of our economic problems. His argument is pure institutionalism and is as applicable today as it was in 1983. Hamilton insisted, “There is no invisible hand.” Instead, Hamilton repeated a simple institutionalist insight: humans must come together and collectively determine their own well-being in a “pragmatic, problem-solving approach to the economy.”