Four Lectures on Economics As a Science of Social Organization

Abstract

I am delighted to be invited to offer these four lectures on economics as a science of social organization, which offers a refurbishment of vision of economics established by the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment. Starting late in the 19th century this vision gave way to the vision of economics as a science of resource administration under the impetus of the importation of the calculus of maxima and minima. Some of these ideas I have presented in my two books from 2022 published by Edward Elgar in their series on “Rethinking Economics.” One is Rethinking Public Choice; the other is Rethinking Economics as Social Theory. Economics began as social theory during the Scottish Enlightenment and morphed into a science of resource administration in the aftermath of the neoclassical revolution. In these lectures I explore how such contemporary analytical ideas and methods as emergence, evolution, complexity, and computer modeling might bring new life to those theorists from the 18th century who recognized that economizing action provided the key to theorizing about a theory of society.

I should note that I have never liked to review what I have already written. While I am always willing to discuss what I have previously written, my mind always looks beyond where I have already been. This is how it is with these four lectures. I am aiming to reconstruct economics from the perspective of a theory of society wherein people live together in close proximity to one another. While I start from the Scottish Enlightenment, along the way I incorporate insights from the aforementioned contemporary schemes of thought among other tools and techniques.

The following four jottings are initial drafts. I should note that I anticipate these sessions to entail more discussion than lecturing. Similar to my style of classroom instruction, I am more interested in exploring with you why I think the way I do than in telling you about my thoughts on the topics at hand. My focus is less on telling people what I think I know than it is on discussing topics of mutual interest where the point of the discussion is to explore more deeply how we might think about the material being examined.