Sabri writes:>There is an interesting book by Oliver Williamson that I bought a while ago but have not read yet. It is entitled something like "Institutions of Capitalism" or some such name. He is the founder of this "transaction costs economics" and will most likely receive a Noble [sic!] Prize in the next few years. I met him a few times in some social gatherings as a matter of coincidence and had a chance to chat with him on the topic, although I must confess what he explained was way above my head. Read it, and if I understood anything from Oliver, you will see that Gunder Frank is right in that, Oliver doesn't know how Marxist he is. <
My impression is that Williamson studies non-market institutions in order to show that corporate hierarchies are a good thing. One of his arguments is that other forms of organization lack the single-mindedness of a corporation (referring to the profit-seeking lust that they have). When I read his stuff years ago -- in preparing an article that Michael Reich and I got published in the REVIEW OF RADICAL POLTIICAL ECONOMICS -- I concluded that there was a basic conflict between capitalists and workers at the center of his theory. Capitalists were striving to attain the collective good for all that worked for the corporation, while disgruntled workers were mere free riders, undermining the collective good. But maybe I mushed his views up with some of the other orthodox authors. JD
