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EXTENSION OF THE THEORY OF INSTITUTIONALISM TO THE PROBLEM OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISRUPTION
Abstract
For the purposes of analyzing the problem of environmental degradation the institutional economic theory is chosen and developed. First, using the works of recent philosophers of science, institutionalism is shown to be a genuine scientific theory. Then the value theory of institutionalism, which is the instrumentalism of John Dewey, is described for the sake of employing instrumental value criteria. Concepts and laws from ecology and thermodynamics are introduced as subcriteria and as enrichment of the content of the theory. The history of institutional thought is searched for the development of the principles of institutionalism and for content concerning the environment problem. This results in a distillation of a set of principles of institutionalism. It also enables the construction of a cyclical model of the economic process which includes a heat sink for entropy and pollution. The substantive definition of 'economy' with the analytical categories of institutions, technology, ecology, values, and beliefs results in the Social Fabric and Process Matrix, which is shown to be useful for understanding the environmental problem. The theory is then employed in a search for socio-economic causal factors of environmental disruption. Historical and comparative analysis rejects the concept of singular causality and promotes a conclusion of a synergistic system of causal factors: ideology with its values and beliefs, institutions, industrial technology, industrial growth, population growth, human imperfections and consumption. The augmented theory of institutionalism is shown to be adequate for both historical analysis of Western civilization and comparative analysis of similar problems in the Soviet Union. Proposed solutions are examined for their possibility of contributing to amelioration of the problem. Most market solutions are rejected for continuing the problem of pecuniary emulation and the market mentality. New solutions are proposed for improving economic theory and for re-embedding the economy in the social structure.
Subject Area
Economics
Recommended Citation
LARKIN, LEO ANDREW, "EXTENSION OF THE THEORY OF INSTITUTIONALISM TO THE PROBLEM OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISRUPTION" (1982). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8227021.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8227021