Otto Neurath's Economics in Context

✍ Scribed by Elisabeth Nemeth, Stefan W. Schmitz, Thomas E. Uebel (auth.), Elisabeth Nemeth, Stefan W. Schmitz, Thomas E. Uebel (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 237
• Series: Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 13
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Otto Neurath (1882-1945) was a highly unorthodox thinker both in philosophy and economics. He proposed a radically expanded scope of economic analysis that would facilitate a comparative and systematic study of the impact of a great variety of economic and political measures on a population’s well-being. Neurath regarded the controversial and widely misunderstood concept of calculation in kind as an indispensable instrument for anyone (economist or politician) who sought to analyze economic relationships from a wider perspective than that of price formation under market conditions. What is the impact of alternative (economic, political or organisational) measures on living conditions? What are the appropriate methods to compare and to rationally choose among alternative measures? In Neurath’s opinion, answers to these questions are crucial for every democratic government. The contributions to this sparkling new book conclude that Neurath touched on many of the most critical problems of economic theory during its formative years as a modern discipline; his economics provides insights into the foundational problems of modern economics and should encourage contemporary economic theorists to critically reflect their own hidden presumptions. Neurath’s arguments continue to challenge the foundations of today’s neo-liberal approach to political-economy. They have also been rediscovered by researchers in the fields of ecological economics and of sustainable development as visionary and original. His comprehensive theory of life conditions and life quality anticipated the questions development economists and the general public meet today.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-ix
Introduction....Pages 3-11
“Freeing up One's Point of View”: Neurath's Machian Heritage Compared with Schumpeter's....Pages 13-36
Otto Neurath as an Austrian Economist: Behind the Scenes of the Early Socialist Calculation Debate....Pages 37-59
Otto Neurath's Concepts of Socialization and Economic Calculation and his Socialist Critics....Pages 61-76
Pluralism and Economic Institutions....Pages 77-100
Neurath on Money: Some Reflections on Neurath's Monetary Thought in the Historical Context of the Birth of Modern Monetary Economics....Pages 101-114
A Similar Line of Thought in Neurath and Sen: Interpersonal Comparability....Pages 115-130
The War Economy and the War Museum: Otto Neurath and the Museum of War Economy in Leipzig, c. 1918....Pages 131-139
Economy, Ideology and Culture: Otto Neurath's Approach to a Precarious Relationship....Pages 141-155
Reviews....Pages 197-224
Consensus in Art and Science....Pages 159-172
Analyticity and the A Priori: Fifty Years of “Two Dogmas”....Pages 173-182
A Second Appraisal: New French Literature on Logical Empiricism....Pages 183-195
Back Matter....Pages 225-234

✦ Subjects

Economics/Management Science, general; Social Sciences, general; Methodology and the History of Economic Thought; Political Philosophy