Hamiltonian and Teleological Dynamics a Century after Veblen

The central theme of David Hamilton's book, Evolutionary Economics: A Study of Change in Economic Thought (1953) is that institutional or evolutionary economics is fundamentally incompatible with the classical and neoclassical tradition. Even though there have been numerous changes in both institutional and neoclassical economics over the last half century, Hamilton's incompatibility assertion was correct when it was written and remains correct today. None of the changes in mainstream economics suggest the abandonment of equilibrium, optimization, or an individualist approach within mainstream economics in favor of a genuinely evolutionary approach. At least four of the developments in institutional economics had the potential to bring substantive change to basic institutional ideas: 1. the internationalization of institutionalism, 2. the development of a close relationship between institutionalism and Post Keynesianism, 3. the refinement of institutionalist value theory beyond the initial Dewey-Veblen synthesis provided by Ayres, and 4. the development of radical institutionalism. The fundamental preconceptions of institutionalism and mainstream economics are incompatible.