The Limits of Radical Institutionalism: A Marxian Critique of Thorstein Veblen’s Political Economy

Abstract

Some commentators pose Veblen’s political economy as a corrective to the “reductionist” character of Marxism. This article counters by highlighting the primary source of differences between Veblen and Marx: their methods. Veblen’s generalized conceptions of monopoly and technology, for example, misread the specificity of the systemic logic of capitalism. These dynamics are fully captured only in Marx’s movement from simple, abstract laws to complex, concrete reality, where “non-economic” factors are not reduced to the economic, but rather intervene at a later moment of the concretization process. JEL classification: B14, B15, P16