Wieser as a Theorist of Institutional Change

Abstract

In this contribution, we provide an interpretation of Friedrich von Wieser’s contribution to economics that pays tribute to the originality of his work and particularly to his view of how institutions interfere with individual behavior. This interaction takes place within a disequilibrium framework where social influences such as power or social class, and psychological factors such as force of habit or herd behavior, are the product of human action but also constitute constraints on further action. Section II stresses the institutionalist background of Wieser’s economics. We concentrate on Wieser’s general method—which we assimilate to an example of Joseph Agassi’s (1975) institutional individualism—and his analysis of the emergence and evolution of institutions via the dynamics of leaders and masses. In section III, we reinforce and illustrate the institutionalist stamp of Wieser’s economics by focusing on his work on monetary economics (Wieser 1904, 1909a, 1909b, 1927b) and his analysis of the emergence of money, based on our reading of Wieser’s Social Economics ([1927a] 1967) and The Law of Power ([1926] 1983).

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