Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE)
Call for Papers
Annual Meeting, AFEE at ASSA; New Orleans, USA
January 6-8, 2023
World at the Crossroads: Finding institutionalist pathways to social, economic and ecological co-existence
The world is at a crossroads. Human societies across the globe are in catastrophic motion. Promises to achieve ‘sustainable development goals’ remain unfulfilled. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic doubles down on that of the global financial crisis in widening gaps between the prosperous and the marginalized. War, eco-system exhaustion, and economic crises are driving people from their home communities and nations. More and more nations’ policy space is shrinking, as leaders unwilling or unable to confront unaccountable wealthy elites govern by divide-and-rule and fear. Reversing the death of our planet requires redistributing resources and rights whose current imbalances reflect legacies of slavery, imperialism, and patriarchy. Efforts in this direction must confront the divisions of race, gender, class, religion, and nation that provide the currency of contemporary politics. There is no ready formula, and we are running out of time.
So what is the task of institutionalist economics now? Our history provides some guidance. Over the years, institutionalists have defended the public interest in shared prosperity and shown how periods of epochal change and system failure require compensating policy action. To landmark works such as Berle and Means’ The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932) and John Kenneth Galbraith’s American Capitalism (1952) can be added newer contributions, such as Hyman Minsky’s 1996 Journal of Economic Issues prophetic dissection of money-manager capitalism and James K. Galbraith’s warning that we have reached The End of Normal (2014).
This brings us to our 2023 conference theme: finding institutionalist pathways to social, economic, and ecological co-existence. Our institutions for social reproduction, market exchange, and governance co-exist with a world spiraling into conflict, dislocation, and resource depletion. By revitalizing approaches historically advanced by institutionalist scholars, and making contact with new issues and approaches, we can hope to discover workable paths to a sustainable future.
Proposals are due June 1, 2022 and should be submitted here. For more information, including example topics and membership requirements, please visit https://afee.net/?page=conferences&side=afee_at_assa_2023.