History and Class Consciousness. Studies in Marxist Dialectics

Max Weber and Thorstein Veblen were two of the major contributors in the field of economics and sociology in the beginning of twentieth century. This paper argues that the works of both authors underline a "rationalization process" that occured in Western societies. We compare the respective analyses of Weber and Veblen on this subject. Despite a formal similarity, the analysis manifests some major divergences concerning the nature and the significance of the rationalization process. We suggest that the major divergences originate in the philosophical and epistemological foundations of the work of each author.     

简析实用主义的真理观

实用主义是西方哲学中的一个重要流派,而真理观是其重要而具有代表性的一个观点。长期以来,我们对实用主义有过多的偏见与误解,甚至有时完全否定其科学价值。通过考察詹姆士真理观的基本内涵和基本特征,可以看出实用主义真理观中,既有需批判的谬误又有可吸收的真理。我们应以科学的态度来评价它。     

Reasserting Institutionalist Insights on the Good Society: 30 Years After Petr’s Call for a Mixed Economy

In this research note, I revisit the issues raised by Jerry Petr (1987) in “The Nature and Necessity of the Mixed Economy.” The institutionalist mixed economy is still a sound model for the good society. However, Western industrialized countries have been losing ground on the goals of the mixed economy. The struggle to defend pragmatism over ideological attachment to neoliberalism, has evolved into a distributional struggle that cannot be resolved without institutional change.     

Is Pragmatism Good for Anything? Towards a Theory of Impractical Economics

This article discusses the relationship between classical pragmatism, political economy and economic policy. Classical pragmatism is contrasted with vulgar meanings and uses of the term pragmatism. Classical pragmatism aims at a deep, substantive theoretical understanding of real-world economic systems and supports application of well-warranted claims to knowledge to improve the human condition. The article reviews the contributions of the founder of pragmatism, Charles Sanders Peirce, to the areas of ontology and epistemology as well as their further development by contemporary classical pragmatist philosopher Susan Haack. Hilary Putnam’s argument that we can have ethics without ontology and objectivity without objects is then critiqued. We need ethics based on an ontology that is rooted in actual human experience; this provides better guidance for evaluating policy proposals. The paper concludes by discussing the affinity of classical pragmatism with different approaches to political economy and policy.

转型时期中国品牌崛起的制约因素研究

改革开放30多年来,中国实现了经济大国的崛起,但是,崛起过程中“中国品牌”成了短板.通过企业价值导向政经环境、文化传承以及管理人才等角度分析后发现,机会主义的企业价值导向从目标设定上背离了品牌发展的方向,不成熟的政治经济环境是约束品牌成长的背景变量,实用主义的传统文化让中国品牌迷失了方向.此外,中国缺乏商界领袖等管理人才也是制约中国品牌崛起的重要因素.     

The State,Public Policy and Heterodox Economics: An Introduction

While most heterodox economists endorse some amount of policy activism, there is no unified conception of the state and public policy in heterodox economics. To help clarify the similarities and differences within heterodoxy – and between heterodox and mainstream economics – a panel addressing this subject was convened in 2007 at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Institutional Thought. This article introduces the essays prepared for that symposium. They include an examination of the position of Marx and Engels, a clarification of the institutionalist views of Veblen and Commons, an outline of the perspective of Post Keynesian Institutionalism, and an account of some essential contributions of Classical Pragmatism (a major school of thought within the philosophy of science). The collection advances what Robert Heilbroner called “the worldly philosophy” by seeking to understand the role of the state in a world where institutions, defined broadly as social habits, adjust to other institutions.

PLURALITY IN URBAN POLITICS: Conflict and Commonality in Mouffe and Thévenot

In this article we introduce a pragmatist interpretation of agonistic pluralism and develop this into an analytical framework that is applied to the analysis of urban conflicts. In the article, we take stock of contemporary critical and radical urban scholarship, our aim being twofold. First, we substantiate Chantal Mouffe's notion of agonistic pluralism with tools from French pragmatic sociology. We suggest that, in a democracy, plurality emerges both as a plurality of conflict manifested in the variety of possible ways to identify injustices, and formulate and justify claims in public struggles, and a plurality of commonality, manifested in different logics by which a ‘we’ can be formed and action coordinated so as to solve issues without resorting to physical violence. Secondly, by applying the developed conceptualization of plurality to an ongoing urban conflict concerning an airport, we showcase the value of the approach for identifying and analyzing different forms and phases of actually existing political conflicts, and for recognizing their meaning for democracy.