ABSTRACT
In this paper I develop a heterodox economics account of how individuals influence institutions and social values. In contemporary economics there are two opposed ways of characterizing this influence. Mainstream economics treats institutions and social values as the products of atomistic individual activity, meaning that when individuals act, they act free of any significant social attachments. In contrast, heterodox economics treats institutions and social values as the product of socially embedded individual activity, meaning that when individuals act, they act socially or as members of various kinds of groups. The atomistic view has dominated economics for a half century or more. Thus, to make sense of this difference from a heterodox perspective, we need to show how individuals in groups act differently from groups of atomistic individuals, or how individuals acting in an organized way behave differently from unorganized collections of individuals. I understand the difference to be essentially a matter of explaining how individuals acting in groups have “shared” intentions about the groups of which they are members.
