New market socialism: a case for rejuvenation or inspired alchemy?

The aim of this paper is to examine the relative merits anddrawbacks of two recent models of market socialism proposedby Bardhan and Roemer. This is done, first, by putting thesemodels into the perspective of the history of economic thought.Thus, after presenting the basic elements of the early Langemodel as well as the Austrian and ‘new information economics’critiques, the necessary comparisons and contrasts are madeto see what new light these new models bring into this debate.In addition, the internal consistency and coherence of thesemodels is checked in terms of their own proclaimed goals. Last,a more radical methodological critique is provided.     

Interrogating Sickonomics,from Diagnosis to Cure: A Response to Hodgson

Hodgson's review of our books argues against us that marginalism neither adopted methodological individualism nor excluded the social from economics. Thus, he finds a partial solution to sickonomics in abandoning the term methodological individualism and using both structures and individuals as analytical starting point(s), revisiting Marshallian marginalism dressed up in socio-institutional clothing. He also denies any relationship between the current malaise in economics and the marginal revolution, as we claim, focusing exclusively on institutional developments since the Second World War. We show Hodgson is either partial or wrong on all of these counts. Firstly, his alternative to methodological individualism is untenable. Secondly, institutions, although implicitly present in Marshallian and Walrasian economics, play no substantive analytical role and as such are superfluous. Finally, although institutional factors help explain the sickness of modern economics (in addition to socioeconomic, ideological, political, and intellectual factors), the intellectual roots of this decay lie in the conceptual framework established around the marginal revolution.