“Talkin’ ‘bout a Revolution” or, What about Institutional Change?

Progressive scholars can easily point out that present neoliberal policies fail to achieve the goals they claim to pursue (output and financial stability) and determine unacceptable income and wealth inequality as well as social debasement. They find it more difficult to conceive of an alternative. What is at issue is not just the identification of some set of technically viable policy measures. Policy determines institutional changes that involve not only the economy but society as a whole. An alternative to Neoliberalism must, therefore, deal not only with its strictly economic implications but with the societal changes that the latter determined. A standard approach in this respect is to focus on interdisciplinarity. While it allows to take account of changes that lie beyond the economy, this approach implicitly assumes that the structure of society—thus the disciplinary boundaries that relate to it—is given. A more interesting approach that draws on the institutionalist tradition, is an open-systems one, which allows for overall—rather than merely additive—change.