ABSTRACT
The work of Thorstein Bunde Veblen133 is not easy to classify, since it involves economic, sociological, anthropological and psychological reflections.134 This ‘eclecticism’ may be seen both as the main cause of the long-term devaluation (if not oblivion) of his thought135 and, by contrast, as the principal reason for the interest that his reflections may hold for many contemporary economists. His profound analysis of the role of social norms in orienting agents’ behaviour is of major importance in interpreting the functioning of market economies, where this interpretation is based on the idea that markets do not work in an institutional vacuum; basically in line with the methodological bases of New Institutionalism.136,137
Institutions are defined by Veblen as ‘prevalent habits of thought with respect to particular relations and particular functions of the individual and of the community’ (Veblen 1975 [1899], p. 190). They are selected in the process of social evolution, according to the principle of the ‘selective conservation of favourable variations’ (i.e. natural selection), and, in turn, they affect the habits and customs of the community where they are accepted:
Institutions are not only themselves the result of a selective and adaptive process which shapes the prevailing or dominant types of spiritual attitude and aptitudes; they are at the same time special methods of life and of human relations, and are therefore in their turn efficient factors of selection.
