Институционална еволюция на обществата към отворен достъп и пазарна размяна?

This article investigates the analytical line of reasoning in D. North’s, J. Wallis’ and B. Weingast’s research project “Violence and Social Orders”, which unifies in an institutional explanation scheme the control over violence in human societies, the equilibrium of interests among the ruling coalition that secures the peace, and the possible transition to impersonal exchange. As the market exchange isn’t a naturally given form of organizing social interaction, but requires erecting of specific institutional settings, this study demonstrates the new institutional approach to the explanation of the developments in economic history which made free markets and the democratic state organization possible during the European Renaissance. Research projects like Nort’s, Wallis’ and Weingast’s pave the way for creating a modern political economy, which - based on a contemporary analytical apparatus – synthesizes the achievements in the social sciences of the last decades with the tradition of the early economic thought.