Evolutionary Political Economy in Crisis Mode
Hardy Hanappi
UniversJty of Technology of Vienna


Summary
This paper sets out to discuss recent economic developments from a twofold perspective. Both
spotlights focus on the special role played hy the current deep global crisis. The first line of
argument centers on the history of economic ideas and shows how evolutionary economics has
emerged as a promising alternative to mainstream neoclassical thought as well as to traditional
Keynesian macroeconomics. The failure of standard macroeconomics to inform economic policy
in the current situation shows that arguments of evolutionary political economists - from
Malthus via Schumpeter to contemporary scholars - can and should substitute these inadequate
models. The second part of the paper takes the argument for evolutionary political economy
to a methodological level: The deep crisis of economic theory is necessarily also a crisis of
the methodological apparatus used. Though evolutionary economics does not provide a welldeflned
alternative set of methods yet, it nevertheless seems to he the best foundation to huild
such a new combination, a methodological innovation, out of some of the most recent advances
in formalization. These latter elements are briefly sketched.