"Reasonable Value" Versus "Instrumental Value:" Competing Paradigms in Institutional Economics
It has long been evident that there are many within the self-identified community of inquiry espousing a commitment to "institutional economics" who yearn for the wider recognition that "institutionalism" constitutes a substitute for "orthodox" economics. ' It thus is a common practice for institutionalists to make reference to the institutional approach or to the institutional school. Indeed, there are those who go so far as to equate "institutionalism" with a scientific paradigm. For example, Marc Tool has averred that "[Its] development has proceeded to the point where paradigm status may be accorded and its substitutability as an alternative perspective for mainstream orthodoxy may be proposed and asserted" [Tool 1986, p. 3]. I wish to argue in this article that the desire to associate "institutional economics," as that term is conventionally understood and employed,2 with an approach to the analysis of economic issues or as a scientific paradigm is misplaced. In actuality, "institutional economics" has