This book deals with the current crises from a somewhat different the usual perspectives. It claims that causes and policy implications of these crises cannot be properly assessed by focusing on allocative efficiency or income growth alone; it requires a more general approach, based on social costs. It does not deal with social costs according to the Pigouvian or the Coasian traditions. It draws on the work of Original Institutional Economics (OIE) such as Thorstein Veblen, Karl William Kapp, and Karl Polanyi, on Post-Keynesians such as Hyman Minsky and, in general, on authors who have provided insights beyond the conventional wisdom of economic thought.

Paolo Ramazzotti, Wolfram Elsner, Pietro Frigato

Part I: Social Costs: At the Core of the Capitalist Economy 1. Social Costs and Normative Economics Paolo Ramazzotti 2. Institutions, Rationality and Social Costs Arild Vatn 3. Social Costs and the Horizonal Approach to Ecological Economics Fred Jennings 4. Planned Obsolescence and the Manufacturing of Doubt. On Social Costs and the Evolutionary Theory of the Firm Pietro Frigato and Francisco Santos-Arteaga 5. The Discourse on Social Costs: Kapp's 'Impossibility Thesis' vs. Neoliberalism Sebastian Berger

Part II: Social Costs of the Present Crises 6. From the Crisis of Distribution to the Distribution of the Costs of the Crisis: the Case of Europe Özlem Onaran 7. The Financial Crisis Viewed Through the Theory of Social Costs L. Randall Wray 8. In Charge of Themselves. The Social Costs of Workfare Policies in Europe Roberto Rizza 9. The Social Costs of Water Commodification in Developing Countries Manuel Couret Branco, Pedro Damião Henriques 10. The Social Costs of Private Elderly Care Remi Maier-Rigaud, Michael Sauer and Frank Schulz-Nielswandt 11. Business Bias as Usual: The Case of Electromagnetic Pollution Angelo Gino Levis, Velerio Gennaro and Spiridione Garbisa 12. A Crisis of Freedom Michele Cangianai