Foucault summarises these differences as follows According t

Foucault summarises these differences as follows. According to him, political economy adopted a triple foundation: irreducible needs (scarcity), the objectivity of labour (a causal series orientation), and the end of history (a completion for the causal series) (Foucault [1966] 1970, 279). Biology conceived that: a certain individuality of life was only a precarious moment doomed to destruction, the objectivity of things was mere appearance, and, in complete opposition to the third foundation of political economy, it bcrp transporter is impossible to impose a limit of duration upon life (non-completion for the causal series). In biology, contrary to what was happening in economic thought, there was no “end of history”, because there was an eternal recommencement of life (evolutionism). Foucault writes: “Where one mode of thought [political economy] predicts the end of history, the other [biology] proclaims the infinity of life” (Foucault [1966] 1970, 279). Foucault concluded with the following statement, which is indeed very inspiring, when taking into consideration how the introduction of Veblen\'s institutional economics could be considered a crucial moment in the history of economic thought: This excerpt, from Foucault\'s The Order of Things, needs to be apprehended, bearing in mind that he only considered European thought in his Archaeology. The argument here is that Veblen was capable of crossing the “philosophy that suits” economics, bringing the refusal of teleology, which in the modern episteme is characteristic of biology, to political economy. Thus, in the next section of this paper we discuss how the Veblenian system of political economy and his critique of the political economy are rooted on the conditions of a modern episteme.
A Foucauldian gaze on Veblen\'s institutionalism: the three consequences
The refusal of teleology in Veblen\'s methodology and theoretical explanations Recently, Liagouras (2009, 1054–5 – emphasis added) restored one of the central aspects of the Veblenian system of political economy: “Veblen, in his work as a whole, has successfully followed the Darwinian position of a continuous evolution without a legitimated or predetermined end, neither an ameliorative trend, nor a unique pattern of development.” In this quotation, Liagouras, whilst observing the absence of teleology in the Veblenian system, identifies a very strong characteristic of Veblen\'s work: its consistency between his methodological manifesto and his writings. In one typical example of his methodological advices, Veblen ([1898a] 1994b, 61 – emphasis added) affirmed: “The great deserts of the evolutionist leaders – if they have great deserts as leaders – lie, on the one hand, in their refusal to go back of the colourless sequence of phenomena and seek higher ground for their ultimate synthesis, and, on the other hand, in their have shown how this colourless impersonal sequence of cause and effect can be made use of theory proper, by virtue of its cumulative character.” A prime example, very revealing regarding his opposition to teleology can be noted when he stated that one of his fundamental categories, the instinct of workmanship, could lead the economic system to multiple ends. In TIWO, there is what Veblen referred to as self-contamination of workmanship. That fundamental inclination was able to lead the social system to paths of development that would oppose the results which can be expected as the obvious results of an instinctive rejection to futile efforts. Based on anthropological studies of his own time, Veblen analysed what he called anthropomorphic and animistic beliefs of primitive peoples worldwide. He defined these beliefs in TIWO as follows: “the naïve imputation of a workmanlike propensity in the observed facts.” (Veblen [1914] 1994f, 52–3). As an example, Veblen mentioned the custom of certain native peoples of North America to impute human characteristics to the clay from which they used to do pottery (Veblen [1914] 1994f, 56–7). Veblen ([1914] 1994f, 53) explained how and why that habit established through the instinct of workmanship\'s influence: