ABSTRACT
One of the major strands in institutional economic thought has been an interest in democratic or indicative national economic planning as a program for coping with the major economic problems of the private enterprise system. Aside from the course of economic events since 1939, which has greatly undermined the foundations of laissez-faire capitalism, other developments in orthodox economics have strengthened the theoretical position of the institutionalists to the detriment of the orthodox position in economics. These developments in academic economics relate to the question of the role of uncertainty in economic affairs. A common element in the theorizing of both the institutionalists and John Maynard Keynes is their interest in doing something about the problem of uncertainty in economic life. For Keynes doing something about this problem meant socializing the investment process so that under state guidance both the long-term and short-term investment processes would contribute to “the general social advantage.
