Includes bibliographical references and index.

The psychoanalytic approach and its potential for a better understanding of economic and social phenomena -- The perspective of psychoanalysis : an outline -- Implications for the study of economic and social phenomena -- Psychoanalysis and social change -- Some controversial aspects of psychoanalysis -- The perspective of institutional economics and its potential for a better understanding of economic and social phenomena -- Institutional economics : the historical and theoretical framework -- Veblen's evolutionary perspective -- Commons's theory of collective action -- The decline of institutional economics in the post World War II period and the new developments of today -- The institutional analysis of the market and the interdisciplinary approach to social evolution -- The market in the heterodox perspective -- The role of "materialistic" and psychological factors in social evolution -- The economic and psychological aspects of the crisis of today -- The role of policy coordination in structural problems -- Public spending and credit creation as the drivers of aggregate demand -- Economic and psychological implications -- The structural transformation of economic systems and the social and psychological implications -- The structural tendency of aggregate demand to lag behind the aggregate supply of full employment -- The "affluent society" of John Kenneth Galbraith and its relevance for the problems of today.