Seven Theses for a Theory of Realist Economics
Principles
Jacques Sapir:
Part 1 [1]
"In Part I, which appeared in the last issue, Jacques Sapir argued that post-autistic or realist economics needs to develop a coherent research program. To this end he proposed to offer seven theoretical theses and introduced the first four.
Thesis 1: The central issue in economics is the co-ordination of decisions and interactions generated by decentralised, heterogeneous and interdependent agents whose decision-making abilities are constrained by limited cognitive capacities.
Thesis 2: If money is a necessity in an uncertain world, money also introduces a specific form of uncertainty, casting doubts on the markets ability to efficiently process information.
Thesis 3: Time and money are at the very heart of the interchange between the individual and collective levels.
Thesis 4: Any attempt to negate the theoretical status of time and money leads to non-scientific assumptions and transforms the economist himself into a producer of ideology.
Part 2 [2]
Thesis 5: To regard money as the one central institution in a market economy fails to break free from the neo-classical framework. Emphasizing only money could be as theoretically misleading as ignoring money.
Thesis 6: The idea that there is one pivotal institution for a market economy is devoid of meaning. Institutions cannot be assessed in isolation. What matter are institutional systems or precisely defined hierarchical clusters of institutions.
Thesis 7: The embededness of any institutional system in a given territory, itself a social and historical construction, is an omission of mainstream economics that is hidden behind the denial of time and money relevance."
Source
SUGGESTED CITATION:
Jacques Sapir, Seven Theses for a Realist Economics; Part I: Theses One to Four, post-autistic economics review, issue no. 21, 13 September 2003, article 1, http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue21/Sapir21.htm
Jacques Sapir, Seven Theses for a Realist Economics; Part II: Theses Five to Seven, post-autistic economics review, issue no. 22, 24 November 2003, article 3, http://www.btinternet.com/~pae_news/review/issue22.htm