ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the origins of the institutionalist perspective in the context of the economic and intellectual history of nineteenth century America. It argues that “institutional economics was the offspring of an entirely distinct philosophical tradition from that which gave rise to neoclassical economics.” The book identifies the “fork in the road” of social inquiry, where institutional heterodoxy emerges as a fundamental departure from neoclassical orthodoxy in quest of a more theoretically adequate and policy-oriented approach. It provides a definitive analysis of the ceremonial-instrumental dichotomy as a normative accounting of some pervasive and different kinds of prescriptive behavior patterns. The book addresses what is perhaps the most important philosophical concept in the philosophical foundations of institutional economics—the instrumental value principle and shows that the “concept of technology, in all of the uses for which institutionalists employ it, refers to an aspect of culture.”
