Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Institutions: Institutions are social structures that organize and guide human behavior. They can be formal or informal, and they can be public or private._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Carl Menger on Institutions - Dictionary of Arguments
Parisi I 268 Institutions/Money/Menger: Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian approach, stated that social scientists must explain “how can it be that institutions which serve the common welfare and are extremely significant for its development come into being without a common will directed toward establishing them” (Menger, 1963/1883(1), p146.) Parisi I 269 Menger’s question links the Austrian approach to Scottish Enlightenment scholars, who explained the spontaneous orders as “the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design” (Ferguson, 1782/1767(2), p. III, S.2). Menger argued that the emergence of money is one such example of spontaneous development of institutions. To solve the problem of the double co-incidence of wants, individuals find more highly valued commodities to exchange, and therefore add an exchange value to the use value of these goods, increasing the demand. As more individuals participate in such exchange, they converge to one or two generally accepted media of exchange, which we call money (Menger, 1892)(3). >Carl Menger. 1. Menger, C. (1963/1883). Problems of Economics and Sociology. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. 2. Ferguson, A. (1782/1767). An Essay on the History of Civil Society. 5th edition. London: T. Cadell. 3. Menger, C. (1892). “On the origin of money.” The Economic Journal 2(6): 239–255. Rajagopalan, Shruti and Mario J. Rizzo “Austrian Perspectives on Law and Economics.” In: Parisi, Francesco (ed) (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics. Vol 1: Methodology and Concepts. NY: Oxford University._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Meng I K. Menger Selected Papers in Logic and Foundations, Didactics, Economics (Vienna Circle Collection) 1979 Parisi I Francesco Parisi (Ed) The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics: Volume 1: Methodology and Concepts New York 2017 |
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> Counter arguments against Menger
> Counter arguments in relation to Institutions
