Dualism - the division of an object of study into separate, paired elements - is widespread in economic and social theorising: key examples are the divisions between agency and structure, the individual and society, mind and body, values and facts, and knowledge and practice. In recent years,...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contrast conventional economists' belief that human needs are optimally satisfied by the market, with Marx's view that capitalism has a narrow focus on money making, where satisfying human needs is at most a by-product of the system's restricted...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide alternatives to the economic man image of human behavior and incorporate these alternative images which are based on motivational needs into utility analysis. Design/methodology/approach – Empirically derived psychological variables define...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a perspective on need that derives from a personalism which is grounded in Catholic social thought and runs counter to the individualism of mainstream economics, focusing on need in the context of three economic activities: consumption, work,...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to deal with questions of instability and economic crises, deriving theoretical arguments from Marx's and Schumpeter's works and presenting relevant empirical evidence for the case of the US food manufacturing sector. Design/methodology/approach – The...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the social capital treatment of Robert Putnam, the most influential conceptual theorist. The paper will detail how Putnam's treatment of social capital has evolved, examine the arguments of his critics and will also critique his socio-economic...

Purpose – Joseph Alois Schumpeter's ideas are in the discussion agenda of various economists working in different theoretical traditions. However, several aspects of his work remain unexplored. In particular, the origin of his ideas in the context of the then prevalent economic theories of the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the “Radical economics” issue in International Journal of Social Economics. Design/methodology/approach – “Radical economics” has two basic meanings. One employs the basic sense of “radical”, whatever goes to the roots of the...

The Nazi economic recovery, achieved between 1933 and 1938, displayed striking features of brilliant economic overhauling of a capitalist machine that had been plagued by a prolonged crisis. The means employed to effect the recovery appear to follow a Malthusian exercise in the rehabilitation of...

Purpose – The paper seeks to answer the question: why is John Kenneth Galbraith a radical economist? The purpose of this paper is to show how he contributed to the development of economic theory and how this contribution differs radically from mainstream economics. Design/methodology/approach...