Economists, the State and the Capitalist Dynamic

Abstract

The State exists predominantly as an aberration for the economics profession. The private interest theory of the state offers a relatively explicit and coherent model but it is doomed by its basis in methodological individualism. A burgeoning literature of the capitalist state is being produced by political sociologists and historians. It demands attention from 'policy- oriented' economists, whose own vision has been constrained by an anglo-american ethnocentricity. Two propositions are of major relevance. First, economic policy is the product of a (nation-based but globally-centred) cluster of institutions, or policy network. Second, the State is a (relatively) autonomous actor both directly in the construction of policy and indirectly in the shaping of political consciousness land actions within civil society. These debates are relevant to the current debates regarding Australian economic reconstruction.