The dark places of business enterprise: reinstating social costs in institutional economics

This volume considers Thorstein Veblen's central preoccupation with the dark places of business enterprise, an integral part of the old institutional economics.

Combining the contributions made by Karl William Kapp and Philip Mirowski, it proposes the systematisation of an adjourned institutional theory of social costs of business enterprise useful for the analysis of contemporary crises. 'The Dark Places of Business Enterprise' explores the research potential of the theory of social costs for the analysis of actual business behaviour in the current globalised privatisation regime.

It begins with a detailed outline of Veblen's critique of business enterprise and market competition before illustrating the methodical enrichment of this approach through Kapp's work.