Humane Economics

Humane Economics Synopsis

Don Lavoie's published work encompasses a wide range of subjects - socialism, hermeneutics, information technology, and culture. The subjects appear unrelated, but a close examination of his research reveals an underlying unity of thought and an economics at sharp variance with the post World War II mainstream. The contributors to this volume explore the legacy of his scholarship and its implications for economics. Three themes run throughout Don Lavoie's work and are explored in these chapters, the overarching one being the importance of social intelligence to economics. Second, and related to this, was his belief that certain institutions or practices are better at creating social intelligence than others - what might be termed the primacy of liberty or voluntaryism. Thirdly, he asserted that economics is more closely aligned with the humane disciplines than with the physical. As these essays make clear, if the next generation of economists does integrate economics with the humanities, some of the credit must go to Don Lavoie. Students and scholars of economics, methodology, and the humanities more broadly will find this a provocative and enriching collection.