Vital Standard and Life Economy: The Economic Thought of Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) is best known as a historian of cities and technology, an activist for improvement of urban environments, and the most influential critic of architecture in the twentieth century. His range of ideas and interests, however, encompassed far more, including a complex view of human nature, the proper role ofliterature and art in life, conditions required for a "good life in a good place," and life-affirming value creation as the fulcrum of healthy civilizations. Probably there is not much he failed to touch regarding public and private domains of human existence, all of which was expounded readably in some 30 books and more than 600 articles between 1914 and 1982. 1 His views have much in common with institutional economics, but he seems mostly and strangely absent from the history of that domain (O'Hara 1999, 523-527). In a long career, Mumford was preoccupied with what it means to be human and how societies might help individuals achieve and sustain their humanity at the highest level. The backdrop for his thought is the imperative of material conditions for human realization, in short, the organization and expenditure of energy in economic systems with their supporting institutional structures. For him the key ideas for thought and action are a vital standard in support of a life economy that does full justice to human development. He also had much to say about how economics is conceptualized as a discipline and was alienated from neoclassical thinking quite as much as Thorstein Veblen. This essay aims to explain and critique Mumford's ideas about economics and related issues; elucidation comes first, criticism at the end. The main thesis is that Mumford was sensible and persuasive about principles but failed to take sufficiently into account stubborn realities of factional politics, divisive economic agendas, and irrational human behavior in mass consumer societies. A secondary thesis is that Mumford swam in the headwaters of institutional economics, even though he was never in any