Table Of ContentInstitutional Economics and the Theory of Social
Value: Essays in Honor of Marc R. Tool
Institutional Eeonomies and the Theory of Soeial
Value: Essays in Honor of Mare R. Tool
edited by
Charles Michael Andres Clark
Associate Professor of Economics
St. John's University
Jamaica, New York
USA
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Institutional economics and the theory of social value : essays in
honor of Marc R. Tool / edited by Charles Michael Andres Clark.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-94-010-4286-4 ISBN 978-94-011-0655-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-0655-9
1. Institutional economics. 2. Economics--Sociological aspects.
3. Social values. 4. Value. 5. Social choice. 6. Tool, Marc R.
I. Tool, Marc R. 11. Clark, Charles Michael Andres.
HB99.5.1564 1995
306.3--dc20 95-20398
CIP
Copyright @ 1995 by Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1995
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1995
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical,
photo-copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
the publisher, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
Printed on acid-free paper.
Contents
Contributing Authors vii
Preface ix
1
Marc R. Tool's Contributions to Institutional Economics 1
Paul D. Bush
2
From Natural Value to Social Value 29
Charles M. A. Clark
3
Institutionalism and Value Theory: An Identity Crisis? 43
Gladys Parker Foster
4
The Urgency of Social Value Theory in Postmodern Capitalism 59
Doug Brown
5
Pragmatism as a Normative Theory of Social Value and
Economic Ethics 75
Lewis E. Hill and Roger M. Traub
6
Efficiency versus Equity: A False Dichotomy? 85
Glen Atkinson
7
The Instrumental Value Principle and its Role 97
Warren J. Samuels
8
The Instrumental Efficiency of Social Value Theory 113
Edythe S. Miller
vi
9
Instrumental Valuation in a Democratic Society 129
Philip A. Klein
10
Compulsive Shift or Cultural Blind Drift? Literary Theory,
Critical Rhetoric, Feminist Theory and Institutional Economics 153
William T . Waller
11
Structural Change and the Compulsive Shift
to Institutional Analysis 179
Charles J. Whalen
12
Beyond Technology to Democracy: The Tool Legacy
in Instrumentalism 195
William M. Dugger
13
Marc Tool's Social Value Theory and the Family 209
Jacqueline B. Stanfield and J.R. Stanfield
14
Market Failure and Regulatory Refonn:
Energy and Telecommunication Networks as a Case Study 221
Harry M. Trebing
15
Thorstein Veblen: Science, Revolution and
the Persistence of Atavistic Continuities 241
Rick Tilman
References 249
About the Authors 273
Author Index 277
Subject Index 281
Contn1JUting Authors
Glen Atkinson Philip A. Klein
Department of Economics Department of Economics
University of Nevada-Reno Pennsylvania State University
Reno, Nevada 89557-0016 University Park, PA 16802
Doug Brown Edythe S. Miller
Department of Economics 580 Front Range Road
Northern Arizona University Littleton, Colorado 80120
P.O. Box 15066
Flagstaff, Arizona 86011-5066 Warren J. Samuels
Department of Economics
Paul D. Bush Michigan State University
Department of Economics East Lansing, Michigan 48824
California State University
Fresno, CA 93740-0020 Jacqueline B. Stanfield
Department of Sociology
Charles M. A. Clark University of Northern Colorado
Department of Economics Greeley, Colorado 80639
St. John's University
Jamaica, New York 11439 J. R. Stanfield
Department of Economics
William M. Dugger Colorado State University
Economics Department Fort Collins, Colorado 80523
University of Tulsa
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-3189 Rick Tilman
Department of Public
Gladys Parker Foster Administration
6468 S. Hudson St. University of Nevada-Las Vegas
Littleton, Colorado 80121 4505 Maryland Parkway
Box 456026
Lewis Hill Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-6026
Economics Department
Texas Tech Roger Traub
Box 41014 Department of Economics
Lubbock, Texas 79409-1014 Texas Tech
Lubbock, Texas 79409-1014
viii
Harry Trebing Charles J. Whalen
Department of Economics Jerome Levy Economics Institute
Michigan State University Bard College
East Lansing, Michigan 48824 Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
12504-50000
William T . Waller
Department of Economics
Hobart & William Smith Colleges
Geneva, New York 14456
Preface
Marc R. Tool, both through his writings and his editorship of the Journal of
Economic Issues, has had a profound influence on institutional economics.
Tool's efforts, in his own words, "has been to keep values on the agenda of
economic inquiry," which is another way of saying "keep economic inquiry
relevant." Tool's work on the theory of social value and instrumental valuation
has helped to keep institutional economics focused on the core economic and
social issues facing society, providing both a perspective from which to analyze
the economy and a criteria for evaluating outcomes. This collection of essays
is a testament to this legacy. Although these 15 chapters cover a wide and
diverse range of topics, it is the common themes which are most striking: the
inescapable necessity of values in economic discourse; the central role of
valuation in economic activity; and most importantly, the requirement of
democratic participation to achieve "efficient" solutions to the economic
problem.
These essays are offered to honor a body of work, a set of ideas, but mostly
a man who, by directing economic inquiry to these core issues, has promoted
"the continuity of human life and the noninvidious recreation of community
through the instrumental use of knowledge. "
The editor would like to thank all the participating authors for their
contributions, and the numerous AFEE members who gave suggestions which
helped to improve this volume, especially Warren Samuels, without whose early
encouragement this book would not have been started, muchless completed, and
Paul Bush, who undertook the enormous task of summarizing Tool's career and
ideas, and who also gave considerable encouragement through out this project.
The staffs at St. John's University, New York, and University College
Cork, Cork, Ireland, both provided the author with considerable assistance and
technical support, and thus deserve recognition.
1. MARC R. TOOL'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO INSTITIITIONAL
ECONOMICS
Paul D. Bush 1
After a period of over twenty years in which institutionalists found it virtually
impossible to get their books published or their articles accepted by professional
journals, the literature of institutional economics began to expand dramatically
in the mid-1970s.2 The establishment in 1966 of the Association for
Evolutionary Economics (AFEE) fmally made it possible for institutionalists to
meet on an annual basis to encourage institutionalist research and to provide a
forum for its critique. The papers presented at the annual meetings of AFEE
began to appear regularly in AFEE's Journal of Economic Issues, which was
launched in 1967. In 1979, the Association for Institutional Thought (AFIT)
was organized, creating a second professional forum for institutional thought. 3
Marc R. Tool was a founding member and the first president of AFIT. In
his presidential address, "The Compulsive Shift to Institutional Analysis, " he set
forth his optimistic belief that
[t]he economist's abiding commitment to develop and apply theory which is relevant, directly or
indirectly, to the great issues and problems of the day, is driving economists out of orthodoxy
to positions similar to or compatible with the positions institutional economists have been
evolving over this century.4
Whether or not the compulsive shift to institutional analysis as he conceives it
is underway among orthodox economists, there can be no question of Marc
Tool's commitment to the expansion of the institutionalist literature. His
2
contributions to institutional economics have been fundamental. Through his
writings-particularly The Discretionary Economy (Tool 1979)-and through his
ten-year editorship of the Journal of Economic Issues (1981-1991), Tool has
offered both a programmatic agenda for the development of institutional thought
and the editorial leadership necessary to encourage and refine the institutionalist
research program in the United States and abroad. Any assessment of his
contributions to institutional economics must consider both of these dimensions
of his professional endeavors.
Beginnings: The University of Denver and J. Fagg Foster
In his remarks upon receipt of the Veblen-Commons Award, Tool made the
following observation:
Unlike the career of Gardner C. Means, among others, whose intellectual commitment to an
institutionalist perspective was a gradual transformation extending over some years, my own self
identification as an institutionalist was more in the nature of a "conversion" following exposure
after just a few months, as a very young graduate student, to the ideas of John Fagg Foster at the
University of Denver.s
Tool was one of many students whose career was influenced by Foster's
teaching.6 Beginning with his doctoral dissertation, Tool's scholarly
contributions present a systematic documentation and extension of Foster's ideas.
Since Foster wrote very little, much of what the profession at large knows of
Foster's views is derived from Tool's interpretation of his work.7 But while
Foster's ideas constitute the intellectual foundation upon which Tool bases his
own work, due recognition must be given to the fact that Tool's writings
incorporate creative contributions that move the institutionalist agenda beyond the
point that Foster had taken it by the time of his death.
Marcus Reed Tool, the third son in a family of four children, was born on
August 3, 1921, in Murdock, Nebraska. His father was a retail lumber dealer.
Hard times in rural Nebraska during the Great Depression forced the Tool family
in 1935 to resettle in Denver, Colorado. Tool entered the University of Nebraska
in 1939, but in 1941 he transferred to the University of Denver, where he
pursued an undergraduate degree in economics and finance. The coursework for
the B.S. degree was essentially finished in early 1943 when he was called to
active duty in the armed forces.8
He volunteered for the U.S. 10th Mountain Division (infantry) and underwent
mountain and ski combat training at Camp Hale, Colorado. In 1945 he served
as a combat platoon leader in the 10th Mountain's Apennine and Po Valley
campaigns in Northern Italy during the last three months of the war. In those
campaigns the 10th Mountain Division suffered heavy losses in some of the
