Throughout the twentieth century, the good society – depicted as an ideal social order of the future – and its institutional as well as social arrangements were not only conceptualized by political and social theorists or philosophers, but also by economists. The project aims at providing a conceptual history of economic thought’s social imagination from the 1930s until today by analyzing transnational networks of economists, here understood as normative actors,, and national and international political implementations both in Europe and beyond. The collaborative research project explores the networks of liberal economists, intellectuals, journalists and politicians that emerged in the 1930s in Europe with vital links to the United States. This network spread and evolved globally over the last seventy years and recent scholarship begins to follow its traces (Wegmann 2002; Walpen 2004; Plehwe, Walpen et al. 2005; Denord 2007; Mirowski and Plehwe 2009). Here, the research interest lies on the question as to how the transnational negotiations about the meanings of concepts such as free market, flexibility, growth, progress, or free prices among economists were implemented in the context of national semantics and traditions. Behind each of these concepts that have a technical ring to them lurk full-blown social imaginations about how individuals and groups, their incentives, dreams, and desires. In many ways, conceptualizing a well-working economy always implies the imagination of a social order simultaneously. Against the backdrop of today’s economic crisis and the semantic insecurities still dominating European and US politics in the face of rising populism, research on the relations between transnational economic networks and national political spaces is of high relevance. Towards Good Society is a Project Sponsored by the Velux Foundation. Towards Good Society is a Project Sponsored by the Velux Foundation. Read more
Throughout the twentieth century, the good society – depicted as an ideal social order of the future – and its institutional as well as social arrangements were not only conceptualized by political and social theorists or philosophers, but also by economists. The project aims at providing a conceptual history of economic thought’s social imagination from the 1930s until today by analyzing transnational networks of economists, here understood as normative actors,, and national and international political implementations both in Europe and beyond.
The collaborative research project explores the networks of liberal economists, intellectuals, journalists and politicians that emerged in the 1930s in Europe with vital links to the United States. This network spread and evolved globally over the last seventy years and recent scholarship begins to follow its traces (Wegmann 2002; Walpen 2004; Plehwe, Walpen et al. 2005; Denord 2007; Mirowski and Plehwe 2009). Here, the research interest lies on the question as to how the transnational negotiations about the meanings of concepts such as free market, flexibility, growth, progress, or free prices among economists were implemented in the context of national semantics and traditions. Behind each of these concepts that have a technical ring to them lurk full-blown social imaginations about how individuals and groups, their incentives, dreams, and desires. In many ways, conceptualizing a well-working economy always implies the imagination of a social order simultaneously.
Against the backdrop of today’s economic crisis and the semantic insecurities still dominating European and US politics in the face of rising populism, research on the relations between transnational economic networks and national political spaces is of high relevance.
Towards Good Society is a Project Sponsored by the Velux Foundation. Towards Good Society is a Project Sponsored by the Velux Foundation.
