Economy as a Social System: Niklas Luhmann’s Contribution and its Significance for Economics By IVAN A. BOLDYREV* ABSTRACT. Niklas Luhmann’s (1927–1998) ambitious research project was aimed not only at describing society as a global social system, but it also analyzed various subsystems (including an economic one). The article assesses Luhmann’s vision of the economy, summarized mainly in his Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft, wherein he addresses basic eco- nomic notions: the economic system, money, prices, rationality, and the market. I then interpret his ideas in the context of modern discussions in economics (intersubjective structures, complex systems, and evolutionary modeling). I also propose some heuristics implied by Luhmann’s economic ontology, which are potentially interesting for methodological and theoretical strategies of modern economics. Introduction Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) was a social thinker who tried to con- struct a universal social ontology of modern society. He developed a conceptual apparatus linking general systems theory, sociological insights on communication and the structure of society, conceptions from biology, and evolutionary ideas. Luhmann’s general theory, which is still not very well known in the English-speaking world, is not discussed at length here. Instead, in this article, an attempt is made to assess Luhmann’s vision of the economy, developed mainly in Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft, his first book devoted solely to one par- ticular (sub)system 1 and to put his ideas on the agenda of modern economic theory and methodology. The task of situating some of Luhmann’s economic ideas within the history of modern economics is promising but has not yet received *Department of Economics, National Research University Higher School of Eco- nomics, Moscow, Russian Federation; E-mail address: iboldyrev@hse.ru. The author is deeply grateful to Dirk Baecker, Alexander F. Filippov, and Nikita A. Kharlamov for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 72, No. 2 (April 2013). DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12013 © 2013 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.