Ordnungstheorie and Theory of Regulation Compared from the Standpoint of Complexity

Abstract

Wirtschaftsordnungstheorie, or simply Ordnungstheorie, and the French Regulation theory are two theoretical constructions in which the connection between the historical character of the economy and the necessarily theoretical dimension of economics has been and is most investigated.¹ How to articulate these two aspects has been a permanent subject of debate since the nineteenth century. This question was already addressed in the Methodenstreit and by Thorstein Veblen (Veblen 1919). However, both Ordnungstheorie and the theory of Regulation are uniquely articulated schemes in their attempts at providing theoretical alternatives to what they perceive to be an unsatisfactory state of scientific economics. This basic dissatisfaction arises in short from the lack of integration of history and theory. The aim of this contribution is to identify a common salient feature related to this issue and developed independently in these theories. It is this feature and the argumentation deriving from it which contribute mostly to the design of these theories as alternative research programmes to what they perceive as an economics mainstream. Although they do not explicitly name and conceive it as “complexity”, its substance is what a noticeable part of present-day complexity theory deals with. It even reaches such a high degree of complexity that it compels a change in the method of theorizing. Such a kind of complexity may be called essential complexity.