A key common preposition of NI is the view that individual can be ‘taken for granted’.

--- the individual, along his/her behavioral characteristics is taken as the elemental block in the theory of the social or economic system;

--- his/her preferences functions is ‘taken for granted’ too.

As Steven Lukes (1973, p. 73) puts in, ‘individuals are pictured abstractly as given, with given interests, wants purposes, needs, etc.’

Having taken the individuals ‘for granted’, the new institutionalists are then set to attempt to explain the emergence, existence, and performance of social institutions on the basis of such assumptions.

It is assumed that individuals actions lead to the formation of institutions, but institutions do not change individuals, other than by supplying information or constraints.

OI established the importance of institutions and proclaimed the need for a evolutionary economics, but then proceeded in a more and more descriptive direction, leaving many of the core questions unanswered.

The individual is no longer taken as given.

It is assumed in this approach that individual is taken to consideration along with his/her behavioral characteristics – habits, traditions, routines, etc.

According to Veblen, institutions are ‘settled habits of thought common to the generality of men’. They are seen as both outgrowths and reinforces of the routinized thought processes that are shared by a number of persons in a given society.

Veblen’s rejections of the assumptions of given individuals is directly connected to his attempt to construct an ‘evolutionary’ economics. He saw instincts, habits and institutions in economic evolution as an analogous to genes in biology.