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Title: Structure and Change in Economic History by C. North Douglass ISBN: 0-393-95241-X Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 June, 1981 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.05 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (4 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Institutions as Panacea
Comment: In this book North modifies the rationality assumption of neoclassical theory and puts individuals into a more complex framework of decision-making. According to my reading, this new model is characterized by an emphasis on incentive constrains (structures/institutions) and a dynamic process of learning (both individual and collective).
But here North runs into a problem with the infamous structure/agency dichotomy. That is, he means to rise above methodological individualism by incorporating a broad, deterministic social "structure" into his analysis -- "by structure I mean those characteristics of a society which we believe to be the basic determinants of performance" (3). However, he also seems to chalk a great deal of explanatory power up to individual leadership, calculation and rationality: the state specifying rules of the game to maximize rents (24) and also: "throughout history, individuals given a choice between a state-however exploitative it might be-and anarchy, have decided for the former" (24). But if there's such a powerful structure, then can individuals really "choose" their fate? How much leeway is there for strategic calculation? On page 32 he seems to say that the masses have no power to choose: "institutional innovation will always come from rulers rather than constituents since the latter would always face the free rider problem". Is North's structure (and institutions) merely an aggregation of the choices of masses of agents, or is it the strategic choices of a few ruling principals and their agents, or is it the evolution of an impersonal body of culture, ideas, law, etc., or is it all three? And if it's all three, then is he trying to incorporate too much into the concept of "institutions", until they become tautological? What CANNOT be an institution under his definition, and if everything is an institution, then how can we formulate testable, falsifiable hypotheses about social change?
North defines institutions as "the humanly devised constrains that construct human interaction" (p. 344); or, the rules of the game in a society. Thus, it is clear that North is trying to provide an explanation of the dynamic interaction among many factors, which is always a difficult task. But he is to be commended for modifying neoclassical thought in this provocative new way, potentially opening a path for a whole new research agenda in the social sciences.
Rating: 4
Summary: theory covering eight millenia of economic history
Comment: Professor North's work is divided into two parts. The first briefly outlines a theory of structural change of institutions through time. North argues that the most interesting aspects of economic history involve assumptions that standard, neoclassical economic theory holds contant. In particular, North argues that "The physiography and resources of the regions together with the state of military technology played decisive roles in determining the size and characteristics of the state and in shaping the forms of economic organization" (pg. 64), and that those forms overcome shirking, known as the Free Rider Problem, through the elaboration of a dominant ideology. It is just such considerations that neoclassical theory cannot account for in its model of the utilitarian actor and yet which are so vital in understanding the essential elements of economic history (rather than economics) - structure and change.
The second part applies the ideas of the first to a few thousand years of human history. At least that is the aim. It is actually little more than a brief recounting of major events in world, particularly Western history. North starts with the so-called First Economic Revolution; that is, mankind's switch from a primarily hunter/gatherer existence to one based mostly on agriculture. He then moves through the decline of the ancient world, spending most all of his time on the fall of the Roman Empire. From there he covers the rise of western Europe and then the American economy at the turn of the last century.
It is this second part that is the book's weakest link. North should either have spent more time discussing how his theory relates to the event he surveys or let the reader apply the theory on her own and left the historical essays out entirely. As they stand, they are little more than brief reviews in "benchmark" and tired historical events. It would have been interesting, for instance, to see how Roman economic institutions and its ideology of stoicism compared with the Ch'in dynasty and confucianism, or of the role that "physiography" - a word used but never discussed - played in the differing development of each. Here North seems much less willing to speculate.
His theory also leaves a little to be desired. By explaining innovation merely as a result of the development of communal, and then personal property rights, he can make the scientist and historian of science shudder. He argues for the central role of structure in forging economic systems and the dominant order, but seems merely to assume that no structure existed in early hunter/gatherer bands - that they were models of egalitarianism. Such ideas run counter to a lot of accumulating evidence that man, like all social mammals, has a basic social structure "hardwired" in us. It is not clear how such knowledge would effect the formation of early "states" as North describes them.
But all criticisms aside, the book is well-written and the discussions, if they cannot lay all controversy to rest, certainly give the reader an excellent introduction to the economic history of man. Given the spate of less-than-rigorous books on the subject that have been published of late, this one is a welcome breath of fresh air.
Rating: 5
Summary: A must read.... I suppose....
Comment: Although this is an important book from the 1993 Nobel Prizewinner in Economics, and a text that capably and fully illustrates what it sets out to do at its outset, I hesitate to recommend it universally for reasons that aren't fully clear to me.....
Certainly, this is a book that should be read by students of economic histroy and political economy. It illustrates how social changes (i.e. changes in property rights) lead to seemingly unrelated changes across the whole of society. It is well-written. Perhaps you should buy this book....
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Title: Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Political Economy of Institutions and Decision) by Douglass North ISBN: 0521397340 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 1990 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History by D.C. North, R.P. Thomas ISBN: 0521290996 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1973 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting by Oliver E. Williamson ISBN: 068486374X Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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Title: The Firm, the Market, and the Law by R.H. Coase ISBN: 0226111016 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1990 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities by Mancur Olson ISBN: 0300030797 Publisher: Yale University Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1984 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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