Social Provisioning Process and Socio-Economic Modeling

2013

The article discusses consumption as a social process that is a part of social provisioning and is in an evolutionary interplay with other social processes. The discussion is grounded in, but is not limited to the contributions of Thorstein Veblen. The first section delineates social provisioning as a framework for consumption inquiry. This section emphasizes that social provisioning is a part of collective life process embedded in culture and nature, and that it is comprised by two general sets of activities -those motivated by money and those that are not motivated by making money. The second section delineates features of capitalism as a system, so that it provides a social context for consumption inquiry. The third section formulates a categorization of social processes, one of which is the consumption process. Further, the section delineates the meaning and components of the concepts: social activities, institutions, and habits of life and thought. The fourth section applies these concepts to consumption social process in the specific context of capitalism. The section discusses consumption activities; institutions and systems of provision; and habits of life and thought -illustrating with examples obtained from various disciplines. The section introduces "gated consumption" as an example of a habit of life and thought. It is argued that the formulated analysis transcends the cultural-material dualism. Finally, the article draws implications of the offered analysis, concluding that the category of "consumers" is of little use to heterodox economics.

Section: 3habits Of Life and Thoughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Social Provisioning Frame Of Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consumption as a Social Process within Social Provisioning and Capitalism: Implications for Heterodox Economics

2013

“…Institutionalist and feminist economists have emphasized the importance of theorizing agency and the stability of social arrangements -structures and their variations and specificity (Veblen 1898;Tool 1994;Grappard 1995;Power 2004;Jo 2011) 10 . The present section delineates social process as a concept that captures both human agency and structures.…”

Section: Social Process: Agency Within Institutions; Institutions Becmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The concept offers avenues for exploring varieties of contexts, social divisions, and conflicts, and enables an open-ended analysis of the economy, where resource creation, human well-being, and valuation are central (Gruchy 1987;Nelson 1993;Dugger 1996;Hutchinson, Mellor, and Olsen 2002;Power 2004;Lee 2009aLee , 2011Lee , 2012Jo 2011;Lee and Jo 2011) 1 . Recent methodological specifications of social provisioning as an analytical framework have been offered by Power (2004), applied to Feminist economics, and by Jo (2011), Lee (2011;, and Lee and Jo (2011), applied to heterodox economics 2 . Applications of the concept of social provisioning to specific areas include Power (2006) and Todorova (2013a;2013b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Monetary Theory of Production to Culture-Nature Life Process: Feminist-Institutional Elaborations of Social Provisioning

2014

The article seeks to contribute to the literature on social provisioning as an organizing concept in heterodox economics. Particularly, the article details social provisioning as an amalgamation of processes and as a part of a system of culture-nature life process. First, the article delineates a categorization of social provisioning activities with respect to motivation in their organizationmonetary and non-monetary, emphasizing the differences, as well as links between those. Second, the article discusses valuation of social activities, applying institutional theory. Third, the concept of a social process is delineated. It is argued that the concept captures agency and structure without reducing one to the other, and allows for theorizing open-endedness of social provisioning. The fourth section offers a categorization of processes and briefly explains each one of those, conceptualizing social provisioning within a historical culture-nature life process. Finally, the article concludes.

“…The framework of social provisioning emphasizes processes and human agency in cultural context and historical time, and enables the exploration of evolution of resources, production, and consumption patterns, as well as of the socio-cultural meaning of activities that constitute social provisioning (Gruchy 1987;Nelson 1993;Dugger 1996;Power 2004;Lee 2010Lee , 2011Jo 2011). The social provisioning process is a concept which is broader than market exchange for three main reasons: (1) it is based on the connections between production, consumption, and distribution; (2) it encompasses non-market activities; and (3) social provisioning is enmeshed in the broader culture and ecosystems.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Connecting Social Provisioning and Functional Finance in a Post-Keynesian Institutional Analysis of the Public Sector

2013

This paper establishes connections between the frameworks of social provisioning and functional finance, and discusses a post-Keynesian-Institutionalist theory of the public sector that emerges out of these linkages. The concept of social provisioning has emerged out of Institutional economics, and has been further developed by institutional and other heterodox economists. Its potential as a methodological foundation that connects various heterodox approaches has received some growing attention. Such discussions have not referred in an analytical manner to functional finance. On the other hand, the principles of functional finance have been elaborated and developed outside an explicit grounding in a social provisioning framework. The article specifies further the concept of social provisioning and discusses functional finance within such a framework. The framework of functional finance gains a structural and institutional grounding which enables a deeper and more critical conceptualization of the public sector.