Prof. Heinsohn – Introduction to the Theory of Ownership-based Economics with a View on the current Global Crisis

Gunnar HEINSOHN, Professor emeritus of the University Bremen, is a historian, sociologist and economist, who elaborated — together with Otto STEIGER — a specic theory of modern economics, namely the theory of ownership-based economics.

This theory deals with a symptomatic lacune of mainstream economics — this being the absence of any theoretical explanation of money and interest in mainstream economics — and focuses on legal institutions such as rights in rem (ownership) and contracts (credit agreements) to explain the origins of money and modern business cycles.

The key elements of mainstream economics, such as the pretense of universalism and the assumption of a homo oeconomicus and his self-interest driven rationality, are amongst those building blocks of contemporary economics which are in the focus of HEINSOHN‘s (and STEIGER‘s) critique.

At the ocassion of his visit to Vienna, Professor HEINSOHN will present an introduction to his theory of ownershipbased economics. The tools developed by way of this introduction will be used to engage in a description and analysis of the current systemic crisis of the globalized economy.