The Social Institutions of Capitalism

Evolution and Design of Social Contracts

Edited by Pursey Heugens, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands, Hans van Oosterhout, Assistant Professor of Institutions and Institutional Design, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands and Jack Vromen, Associate Professor in the Philosophy of Economics, Faculty of Philosophy, Erasmus University, The Netherlands

Offering a diverse set of contributions to current social contracting research, The Social Institutions of Capitalism illustrates how social contracts necessarily underlie and facilitate all forms of capitalist production and exchange.

‘Heugens, van Oosterhout and Vromen have pulled together a diverse set of ideas around a common theme, social contract theory, that provides a useful underpinning for our ideas about what makes societies work in the ways that they do. Rather than attempting to integrate ideas from scholars of game theory, contract law, organizational theory, economic philosophy and business ethics, moral, and political philosophy, they outline a common framework on which these disparate ideas all cohere. Fundamentally, the editors suggest that for a social contract to be practical and workable, we as people living in societies have to agree to the underlying values and norms within a particular social contract as rational and reasonable agents. This type of synthesis provides a helpful framework for understanding what the limits and boundaries of social contract theory are and should be useful to thinkers in all of the domains covered by the authors in the book.’
– Sandra Waddock, Boston College, US

‘I have read the introduction of The Social Institutions of Capitalism with great pleasure. This book about contractarian theories provides deep insights into the foundations of economic systems and organizations like firms. Fundamental questions about why individuals would accept authority, about the behavioural assumptions in modern economic theory and about the foundation of the institutional fabric of society are very profoundly discussed by leading experts in the field.’
– John Groenewegen, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands