A Foucauldian view of Veblen's institutionalism : non-teleology and the interdiscursivity between economics and biology

This paper explores some ontological and epistemological conditions of the emergence of the Veblenian system of political economy. For that, we refer to Foucault's archaeology of political economy, since it offers insights into some of the relations that help us to understand the underlying structure of thought in Veblen's historical intellectual context. Considering Foucault's archaeology as a reference, it is possible to understand how Veblen, inspired by the epistemological conditions that political economy shared with biology, constructed a unique method in economic thought, thus overcoming what was at that time one of its main characteristics: teleology.