Re: individualism vs holism.

["Forstater, Mathew" <ForstaterM@xxxxxxxx>]

There was a big discussion concerning some of these issues at a
conference on economics and sociology at Stanford a couple years
ago--and some participants referred to a published debate as well.
There was an Austrian contingent that defended what they called
"sophisticated methodological individualism" which I took to mean not
atomism but something more like institutional individualism, though that
term was not used.  Participants contrasted methodological individualism
with methodological institutionalism or methodological structuralism.
Methodological holism was also proposed as a middle ground alternative,
but the Austrians did not want to give up the individualist emphasis.

What Keynes did recognize were the paradoxes of macroeconomics, such as
the paradox of thrift, where the logic of the whole is not the logic of
the individual part.  These kind of phenomena support the idea of a
macrofoundations of microeconomics.  From a macro foundations of micro
point of view, e.g., firms operating in a capitalist context exhibit a
certain kind of 'efficiency', not because of the standard micro reasons,
but because they operate in a macro system that is inherently demand
constrained (in relation to capacity), creating 'buyers markets' and
increasing competitive pressures that force firms to be watchful of
costs, etc.

mat