Public Policy Adrift: Veblen’s Blind Drift and Neoliberalism

Abstract

This paper considers the factors that currently shape and direct public policy formation in the United States. The paper begins by articulating the general position of institutionalists with regard to the purpose of public policy analysis and formulation. Next, a discussion of Thorstein Veblen’s view is presented focusing on his rejection of meliorative tendencies in the economy and the meaning of his concept of blind drift as applied to the likely direction of ongoing social processes. Then, we explore a contemporary analysis of the belief in the role of meliorative trends in contemporary social and economic policy analysis and discussions by James K. Galbraith. Then, we examine Philip Mirowski’s recent analysis of the shaping of the direction of public policy debate by what he refers to as the neoliberal thought collective as a mitigating factor to the blind drift suggested by Thorstein Veblen.

Keywords:

• blind drift
• meliorative trends
• normal
• agnotology
• neoliberalism

Notes

A version of this paper was presented at the twenty-seventh annual meeting of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy, Genova, Italy, 18 September 2015.