Veblen’s dark places of business enterprise and the theory of social costs

The current chapter provides a constructive critical analysis of Veblen’s theory of the system of business enterprise. In line with Rutherford’s highly opportune emphasis on the fact that “institutionalists found market failure to be widespread, in fact endemic to the existing system of business”, we regard it as a theory of social costs (Rutherford 2015, 78; Frigato, Santos-Arteaga 2012).