Finance Capital, Neo-Liberalism and Critical Institutionalism

Abstract

Classical critical institutionalism is compared to recent `neo-instititutionalism' in economics, sociology and organizational studies. Both approaches developed during a regime change within capitalism, crisis periods of economic change and destabilized relationships between capitalist sectors and social institutions. Unlike mainstream economics, institutional approaches map these changing connections between capitalist sectors (finance and industrial capital, for instance) and between economic and social institutions. The critical institutionalists were much more critical of society, mainstream economics and finance capital as a destructive force, a stance that has continuing utility for the analysis of global capitalism and neo-liberal finance capital. The new institutionalists, while uncritically positivist and administrative in their orientation to the capitalist system, have nevertheless devised useful concepts and theories of economic organization and structure. A new, condensed critical institutionalism is needed to better analyze neo-liberal finance capital in this era of globalization.