Abstract I reconstruct Marx’s critical adaptation of the Hegelian theory of ethical life and social freedom to explore his ethical critiques of capitalism as a system of unfreedom. While freedom holds a central role in Marx, its meaning and role within historical materialism remain implicit. An ontological analysis of Marx’s inheritance of the theory of ethical life leads to conceptualizing his practical ethics consistent with the historical materialist social theory. Hegel’s socialized theory of freedom helps systematize Marx’s concept of freedom that contains emphases on individual realization, free labour, collective self-determination and stronger social bonds. This historical analysis illuminates Marx’s critiques of capitalism that overturn the Hegelian understanding of modern society as a system of social freedom that combines particularity and universality within relationships of reciprocal recognition. Marx shows that capital materially institutionalizes misrecognition of others, subjugates individuals as an untransparent and alien power, systematically constrains personal/negative freedom in accordance with its valorization requirements and turns it into a moment for reproducing a deeper system of unfreedom.

Abstract Scholarship in history and philosophy of economics over the past decades largely affirmed the enduring relevance of Keynes’s concerns over the (in)completeness of theoretical model analyses, the choice of functional form, the homogeneity and measurability of empirical materials, and the use of probabilistic estimation and forecasting methods. In my contribution to this special issue, I will concentrate on Keynes’s initial concerns about the homogeneity and measurability of what Keynes quite consistently referred to as empirical ‘factors’ instead of ‘variables’. My argument is that Keynes’s concerns with econometrics were motivated by a conviction that the building blocks of sound explanations in economics did not consist of statistical data that served to quantify the (causal) variables in an equation, but of the facts and events of history, factors which are of a different order than the statistics and variables of mathematical models. Taking these factors or variables as point of departure in economic theories and explanations entail different ontological commitments, which in Keynes’s review are buried in his juxtaposition of his own ‘logical’ and Tinbergen’s ‘arithmetical’ or statistical mind. We can trace this juxtaposition to Keynes’s assessment of his illustrious predecessors Stanley Jevons and Alfred Marshall. I argue that Keynes shared Marshall’s strategy to base his analysis on the facts and events of history to reconstruct the ‘logic’ of the situation and not, as Jevons did, on the mechanisms allegedly buried in statistical data sets. This strategy sets Keynes apart from contemporaries like Tinbergen, and from the econometric revolution at large. I thus approach Keynes, from a different angle than Marchionatti (2010) and Lawson (1989), as a realist and ‘thinker of complexity’. In conclusion, I will briefly reflect on the enduring relevance of Keynes’s criticism of Tinbergen, and the pertinence of his reliance on the ‘mazes of logic.’

Abstract The aim of this contribution is to explore the nature and meaning of the relation between the history of economic thought (HET) and ontology, focusing specifically on the case of a prominent nineteenth-century economist: Léon Walras. Drawing on this illustrative case, it argues that the history of economic thought remains essential for a deeper understanding of current economic analysis. The interpretation of Walras’s economics proposed is different from the one which is often retained by most of the mainstream economists. It is not founded on individual rational choice but on four fundamental ontological indications which concern the definitions of society, economic agents and the state. This reinterpretation of Walras’s works gives a significant example of the importance of history of economic thought and ontology to better understand the meaning of economic analysis.

Abstract This paper makes a contribution to the literature on ontology and the history of economic thought firstly by providing an ontological reading of Adam Smith and then by expanding the analysis to accommodate a key ontological feature of the Smithian theory—the intersubjectivity of needs emerging from the limits of empathy. This reading of Adam Smith reveals his theory of empathy is not only related to ethics, but also to social phenomena. The intersubjective needs that the limits of our empathy have brought into existence are shown here as one such social phenomenon and can thus be considered a proper subject of social ontology. The paper tries to expand the social ontological project of Tony Lawson so as to accommodate analysis of such a concept of need.

Abstract Edmund Burke attracted the interest of both F.A. Hayek and John Maynard Keynes, even though the two economists often clashed on many vital questions over economic policy throughout the twentieth century. My paper seeks to explain this convergence in their thought by employing Tony Lawson’s framework of social ontology. It argues that Hayek’s and Keynes’ shared affinity for Burke generally derived from their attraction to the expedient and utilitarian dimensions of his political theory and to his sharp resistance to political rationalism. Even with their intellectual tensions, Hayek’s and Keynes’ attraction to the anti-revolutionary and utilitarian strands of Burke’s political theory was rooted in their sensitivity to the complicated nature of social reality that, in their view, escaped the powers of formal deduction. As a guiding principle of the heterodox turn toward social ontology in economics, this belief can be traced back to Burke’s attack on the tendency among elite contemporaries in the eighteenth century to quantify and rationalize the deep complexities of society. I conclude, however, by suggesting that both Keynes and Hayek were not able to escape the economistic outlook they otherwise decried. This outlook requires Burke’s broader notion of social ontology to protect against its gravest vulnerability—the absence of a moral imagination.

Abstract This paper offers an overview of the existing literature on Smith and realism. Noting alignments drawn in the extant literature between Smith’s ‘History of Astronomy’ and The Theory of Moral Sentiments and critical realism in particular, the paper goes on to review whether further connections between Smith’s work and realism may be pointed to more broadly. In doing this, we also switch the starting point, and ask whether and in what form key foundations and principles of the realist literature may open up new perspectives on Smith’s work. The urban economy—which presents questions about how we identify causal mechanisms and the bases on which we can theorise about phenomena—is taken as a substantive domain for considering this interplay concerning Smith and realism.

Abstract This paper updates the explanation of the share of profits in national income in my 1975 book, A Theory of Profits. The theory relates the profit margins of firms to their needs to generate internal finance for investment. Changes in business motives and the financial system have altered this relationship, especially for firms with monopoly power, requiring the theory to be updated. The updated theory could explain the widespread recent increase in the profit share and decrease in the wage share, though with some modification of its policy implications. The paper includes a detailed account of how the 1975 book was shaped by an outstanding past generation of Cambridge economists.

Abstract With growing wealth inequality today, early understandings of the capitalist market, whether justificatory or critical, are receiving greater attention in economic theorising. While G.W.F. Hegel is often considered an obscure metaphysician by economists, I argue his social ontology helps theorise the normative relationship between the market, labour and social freedom. Influenced by Adam Smith, Hegel thinks that civil society as a ‘system of needs’ is necessary for social freedom. However, it has unresolvable contradictions. The propensity for poverty and ‘moral degradation’ gives rise to a ‘rabble’—‘the worm in civil society’—which lacks recognition. I shed new light on longstanding issues in Hegel’s economic theorising by contending that his social ontology and construal of human labour differs from Smith and in effect challenges the ontological individualism of classical political economy and mainstream economics alike. Hegel’s idea of social freedom as mutual recognition gives insight to Marx’s value-form critique of capitalism.

Abstract Original Institutional Economics (OIE) begins with the work of Thorstein Veblen, who built on evolutionary theorizing to articulate a combined biological and social ontology. Human beings evolved as social animals with propensities that shaped human relations, but the dominant factor in the constitution of social relations was the development of culture, including language. William Dugger’s 1980 article on power introduced a framework for analysing institutions in clusters. While interesting for various reasons, we note that this aspect of his analysis lacks a theory of social constitution and a framework for systematically examining the internal structure of these clusters and accurately describing their interrelationships. We argue that Social Positioning Theory (SPT) can offer a theory of social constitution that aligns with Dugger’s framework and enriches the theory of power he articulates by considering power at all levels of society, not just within institutions.