This would be my first instinct.

One could argue that how one conceives the relationship between the individual and society is the most fundamental decision of any social theory. This decision not only structures the manner in which theories apprehend the relationship between theory and the world (the epistemological issue), but also the ways in which the basic elements of a theory are causally related (the methodological issue). In economics, neoclassical economics is perhaps the best example of a theoretical approach that is based on what I will describe briefly below as the Cartesian totality, where parts are given independent to and prior to the social whole. Neo-Ricardian economic theory and some parts of Marxian theory, especially that approach now known as "Analytical Marxism, " are also based on the Cartesian totality. Classical Marxism and traditional Keynesian theory, as well as the older historicist economics, are examples of economic theories based on what I call the Hegelian totality, where the social whole is understood as ontologically prior to the individual agents.

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