Anti-Williamson

4 June 2011 at 12:10 am Peter G. Klein 2 comments

| Peter Klein |

Thanks to Per for reminding me of this 2004 paper by Daniel Ankarloo and Giulio Palermo, “Anti-Williamson: A Marxian Critique of New Institutional Economics” (Cambridge Journal of Economics 28, no. 3). It’s one thing to question Williamson’s behavioral assumptions and to complain about their implications for education and business practice. But apparently “Williamson’s categories, his method and conception are themselves products of bourgeois ideology.” Who knew?

Bonus: Here’s Doug North getting the same treatment. And if anyone thinks I don’t take Marx seriously, let me say that I once mitigated a contractual hazard in my pajamas — how it got in my pajamas I’ll never know.

Entry filed under: - Klein -, New Institutional Economics, People, Theory of the Firm.

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2 Comments Add your own

1. David Hoopes | 4 June 2011 at 12:39 am

Wonder if these wealthy Marxists ever read Trotsky. He had a really high opinion of people who lived off the fruits of capitalism while extolling the virtues of Marxism.
2. SkepticProf | 4 June 2011 at 10:40 pm

I own a copy of “Anti-Samuelson” and tried to read it a few times. I thought the critiques were about trivial things rather than about the neoclassical method itself.

Things like (paraphrased) “Samuelson says that most capital is durable, except the portion that depreciates. This is obviously wrong because it directly contradicts…”