An Evaluation of Institutional Matrices Theory Which Was Designed to Illustrate Differences Between Russian and Western Political Economies

Abstract:

This article is devoted to the evaluation of the institutional matrices theory (IMT), which was designed to illustrate the differences between Russian and Western political economic systems. IMT has no matrix, and it is an ideological declaration rather than a theory. It is a set of assertions and assumptions that are adopted without evidence, and then hypostatized to be Russian and Western socioeconomic systems. IMT literature claims to utilize the reciprocity, redistribution, and exchange model of Karl Polanyi (1944, 1957). However, IMT suffers from a number of assumptive and methodological problems in its application, the first of which consists of the complete exclusion of reciprocity from consideration. The first section of the article is an explanation of problems with IMT, and the second section demonstrates some particulars of the IMT problems with a real-world social fabric matrix from a Western nation.

Keywords::

• institutional matrices theory
• Karl Polanyi
• social fabric matrix

JEL Classification Codes::

• A13
• B52
• O57
• P16

Notes

¹ Elsewhere, I substituted the term coadjuvancy for reciprocity to solve a logical problem and to avoid the frequently encountered problem of economists interpreting reciprocity to mean market exchange (Hayden 2015, 576-577). Here I use reciprocity in order to make the concern easier to relate to the IMT literature.

² Figure 2 drew on information from reports of students working under my guidance, found on the SFM website (http://cba.unl.edu/academic-programs/departments/economics/sfm/).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

F. Gregory Hayden

F. Gregory Hayden is a professor of economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.