Viktor Vanberg

Discoverers of “market failures” as well as advocates of the general efficiency of a “true, unhampered market” sometimes seem to disregard the fundamental fact that there is no such thing as a “market as such.” What we call a market is always a system of social interaction characterized by a specific institutional framework, that is, by a set of rules defining certain restrictions on the behavior of the market participants, whether these rules are informal, enforced by private sanctions, or formal, enforced by a particular agency, the “protective state,” in J. M. Buchanan's terminology.

The article discusses some of the fundamental conceptual and theoretical aspects of rational choice and moral order. A distinction is drawn between constitutional interests and compliance interests, and it is argued that a viable moral order requires that the two interests somehow be brought into congruence. It is shown that with regard to the prospects for a spontaneous emergence of such congruence, a distinction between two kinds of moral rules which we call trust-rules and solidarity-rules is of crucial importance.

Darwin himself suggested the idea of generalizing the core Darwinian principles to cover the evolution of social entities. Also in the nineteenth century, influential social scientists proposed their extension to political society and economic institutions. Nevertheless, misunderstanding and misrepresentation have hindered the realization of the powerful potential in this longstanding idea. Some critics confuse generalization with analogy. Others mistakenly presume that generalizing Darwinism necessarily involves biological reductionism. This essay outlines the types of phenomena to which a generalized Darwinism applies, and upholds that there is no reason to exclude social or economic entities.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Editorial Foreword -- The "Knowledge Problem" as the Integrating Theme of F.A. Hayek's Oeuvre: An Introduction to The Sensory Order -- The Sensory Order: An Inquiry Into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology -- Preface -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- I. The Nature of the Problem -- II. An Outline of the Theory -- III. The Nervous System as an Instrument of Classification -- IV. Sensation and Behavior -- V. The Structure of the Mental Order -- VI. Consciousness and Conceptual Thought -- VII. Confirmations and Verifications of the Theory -- VIII. Philosophical Consequences -- Other Writings on the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology -- Contributions to a Theory of How Consciousness Develops -- What Is Mind? -- Within Systems and About Systems: A Statement of Some Problems of a Theory of Communication -- The Sensory Order after 25 Years -- Name Index -- Subject Index.

Normative individualism appears to be an obvious normative premise underlying a liberal conception of the desirable social order. The shortcomings of some common Interpretations of this premise are discussed and a more consistent as well as a more workable standard for assessing the ‘goodness’ of alternative socio-institutional arrangements is specified. With such an Interpretation of normative individualism, a contractrarian conception as advocated by J.M. Buchanan can be viewed as a systematic extension of classical liberalism.

Why do the conventions that enable society to cohere survive, even when it is not in everyone's interests to obey them? This book is about how the rules and institutions which are the basis of co-operation in society can be systematically explained. The social sciences which have concerned themselves with this question have frequently come up with opposite explanations, neither of which seem adequate. Economics, with its emphasis on individual choice, seems unable to account for individuals following rules when it is not in their interest to do so. Sociology, which can explain such rule-following behaviour, struggles to account for purposeful individual action. In the place of such a stark opposition, Viktor J. Vanberg offers an analysis which cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries between such fields as economics, law, moral philosophy, sociology and political science. Addressing such issues as the relationship between self-interest and morality and between evolution and design, his range of reference is equally wide, and Vanberg analyses the contributions of Rawls, Axelrod, Gauthier and Coleman, amongst others. Particular attention is given to a comparison of Hayek's evolutionary liberalism and Buchanan's contractarian liberalism. Taken together, the various parts of the volume represent a coherent theoretical argument about why institutions exist, and why they change.

Meine erste „Begegnung“ mit Hans Albert war zwar lediglich indirekter Natur, sie war aber für die Ausrichtung meiner Forschungsinteressen und für meinen akademischen Werdegang höchst folgenreich. Nach dem Abitur hatte ich mich – gegen den Rat meines Lateinlehrers, der mir dringend empfahl, ein „vernünftiges“ Fach, nämlich Latein, zu studieren – für die Soziologie entschieden und verbrachte die ersten drei Semester an der RWTH in Aachen, meiner Heimatstadt, an der Arnold Gehlen lehrte. Ich kann mich zwar nicht mehr erinnern, ob dies in meinem zweiten oder dritten Semester war, und auch nicht, wie ich auf die Lektüre gestoßen war, aber mir ist noch höchst lebhaft in Erinnerung, dass ich auf dem Rückweg von einer Vorlesung nach Aachen-Forst, der Vorstadt in der ich wohnte, in der Straßenbahn einen Artikel – ich meine, er war von Helmut Spinner – über den von Hans Albert vertretenen kritischen Rationalismus Karl Poppers las, der mich regelrecht elektrisierte und so nachhaltig beeindruckte, dass Alberts Schriften fortan für mich zur entscheidenden Orientierungshilfe bei der Ausrichtung meines Studiums und der Herausbildung meiner späteren Forschungsinteressen wurden.

A common perception is that economic theory is based on a methodological individualism, while political economy adopts normative individualism as the standard of judgment. Kenneth Arrow voices this perception in asserting “it is a touchstone of accepted economics that all explanations must run in terms of the actions and reactions of individuals [and] not of other social categories”. While agreeing with Arrow’s diagnosis that in their actual practice economists do not generally adhere faithfully to the principle of methodological individualism, I shall argue that this is not due to inherent limitations of this principle but to economists’ failure to consistently apply it. And, while Arrow quite obviously considers James Buchanan’s methodological and normative individualism ill-founded, I shall argue that Buchanan’s contractarian-constitutionalist approach is solidly based on a consistent methodological individualism.

English summary: Prepared for a conference on the significance of Erich Hoppmann's contribution to competition theory and policy, the articles collected in this volume discuss central issues of the role of competition policy in a free society, including in particular issues raised by the more economic approach emphasized recently in EU competition law. German description: Die wettbewerbstheoretischen Beitrage von Erich Hoppmann, in denen das Leitbild der Wettbewerbsfreiheit und ein evolutorisches Wettbewerbsverstandnis im Vordergrund standen, haben die wettbewerbspolitische Diskussion in Deutschland massgeblich gepragt. Das Werk Hoppmanns aus heutiger Sicht kritisch wurdigend und an seinen Beitrag anknupfend setzen sich die in diesem Band zusammengestellten Aufsatze renommierter Autoren mit grundsatzlichen Fragen der angemessenen Wettbewerbspolitik in einer freiheitlichen Gesellschaft auseinander. Beachtung wird dabei nicht zuletzt der Frage des Verhaltnisses von Wettbewerbsfreiheit und Effizienz geschenkt, die fur die Auseinandersetzung mit dem more economic approach in der europaischen Wettbewerbspolitik von zentraler Bedeutung ist.