Criticism
Critics of institutionalism have maintained that the concept of "institution" is so central for all social science that it is senseless to use it as a buzzword for a particular theoretical school. And as a consequence the elusive meaning of the concept of "institution" has resulted in a bewildering and never-ending dispute about which scholars are "institutionalists" or not—and a similar confusion about what is supposed to be the core of the theory. In other words, institutional economics have become so popular because it means all things to all people, which in the end of the day is the meaning of nothing. Indeed, it can be argued that the term "institutionalists" was misplaced from the very beginning, since Veblen, Hamilton and Ayres were preoccupied with the evolutionary (and "objectifying") forces of technology and institutions had a secondary place within their theories. Institutions were almost a kind of "anti-stuff," their key concern was on technology and not on institutions. Rather than being "institutional," Veblen, Hamilton and Ayres position is anti-institutional.
Read more about this topic: Institutional Economists
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Homoeopathy is insignificant as an art of healing, but of great value as criticism on the hygeia or medical practice of the time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)