The 'revolution now in progress': social economics and the labor question

摘要

This article revisits postbellum efforts to address the labor question and social reform through the emerging field of economics, in particular through social economics. Social economics, now usually known as institutional economics, offered on alternative path for the field of economics, one which rejected sharp distinction between practical or material studies and social-theoretical inquiries. This broad approach to economics in particular and the social sciences more generally shaped the emerging field of labor history. Labor historians have long been critical of early labor histories, particularly stressing their narrow focus on unions and economic goals. A re-examination of social economics, and the contingent language of institutionalism, however, suggests that social economics can continue to offer labor historians a useful model, one that stressed the position of labor history within broader examinations of political economy.