Economics, Power and Culture: Essays in the Development of Radical Institutionalism.

• Author: Dugger, William M.

This book contains thirteen essay-chapters, introduction, preface, references, and index. The essays were done over the period 1974 through 1989. The collection of essays represent early foundations of radical institutionalism, written before radical institutionalism had even become a widely recognized aspect of institutionalism itself. So, the collection is important because of its pathbreaking nature. The major theme running through the essays and unifying them into a significant book is the theme of crisis in late capitalism. This theme also makes the collection into a coherent book, the whole of which is greater than the sum of its parts.

The book deals with three related dimensions of contemporary crisis: 1) the economic dimension, 2) the cultural dimension, and 3) the role of radical institutionalism itself. Each dimension is worthy of attention. I will try to summarize Stanfield's contributions in each dimension with a few paragraphs.

First, Professor Stanfield explains the economic crisis of late capitalism in terms of two related elements. The democratic, industrialized economies are in crisis because of the ways in which they are absorbing and/or falling to absorb their growing economic surpluses. They are also in crisis because of growing imbalances in their economies. Failing to redistribute income far more widely and equally, the industrial democracies have fallen back on violent spirals of military spending and on invidious orgies of conspicuous consumption to absorb the rising surplus. But the resulting growth in production and realization of profit potential has been by fits and starts. Stagnation and widespread unemployment have always been on the verge of breaking out, particularly when an interlude of peace is encountered or when the Galbraithian revised sequence bogs down. The industrial democracies have developed imbalances between the quantities of production and consumption and between the qualities of knowledge brought to bear on decisions regarding each. Furthermore, economic imbalance has intensified because the mere material means of living a full life (consumption) have become the ends of life itself.

Second, Professor Stanfield explains how the cultural crisis of late capitalism is related to the economic crisis. The inversion of the means and ends of the human life process is a result of the economy being disembedded from the society (Karl Polanyi's great theme). We are confronted with the paradox of affluence...