Bøger af Geoffrey M. Hodgson

How the development of legal and financial institutions transformed Britain into the world's first capitalist countryModern capitalism emerged in England in the eighteenth century and ushered in the Industrial Revolution, though scholars have long debated why. Some attribute the causes to technological change while others point to the Protestant ethic, liberal ideas, and cultural change. The Wealth of a Nation reveals the crucial developments in legal and financial institutions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that help to explain this dramatic transformation. Offering new perspectives on the early history of capitalism, Geoffrey Hodgson describes how, for the emerging British economy, pressures from without were as important as evolution from within. He shows how intensive military conflicts overseas forced the state to undertake major financial, administrative, legal, and political reforms. The resulting institutional changes not only bolstered the British war machine-they fostered the Industrial Revolution. Hodgson traces how Britain's war capitalism led to an expansion of its empire and a staggering increase in the slave trade, and how the institutional innovations that radically transformed the British economy were copied and adapted by countries around the world. A landmark work of scholarship, The Wealth of a Nation sheds light on how external factors such as war gave rise to institutional arrangements that facilitated finance, banking, and investment, and offers a conceptual framework for further research into the origins and consolidation of capitalism in England.

This Element examines the historical emergence of evolutionary economics and how it has embraced a diverse set of approaches. Its core ideas are compared with those of mainstream economics. Looking to the future, suggestions are made from strengthening its core while addressing the problem of its disciplinary location within academia.

Drawing on a theoretical approach called legal institutionalism, the author establishes that the important factor in the emergence of capitalism is the constitutive role of law and the state. He identifies the key institutional developments that coincided with its rise.

Of paramount importance to the natural sciences, the principles of Darwinism, which involve variation, inheritance, and selection, are increasingly of interest to social scientists as well. This title reveals how the British naturalist's core concepts apply to a range of phenomena, including business practices, technology, and science itself.

Hodgson calls into question the tendency of economic method to explain all economic phenomena using the same catch-all theories. He argues that you need different theories and that historical contexts must be taken into account.

This book challenges the view that an alternative to Western capitalism is neither possible nor desirable. Without proposing a static blueprint, the author explores a new possible scenario.

Charts the rise, fall and renewal of institutional economics.

Are humans at their core seekers of their own pleasure or cooperative members of society? Paradoxically, they are both. This title focuses on the evolution of morality, its meaning, why it came about, and how it influences human attitudes and behavior.

Recent events in Eastern Europe have underlined the limitations of Marxian economic and political theory. In this collection of essays Hodgson subjects Marxian economic theory to critical examination and shows which elements retain their modern relevance.

Geoffrey Hodgson aims to demonstrate that social institutions play a central role in moulding preferences and guiding action.