Economics - Unfit for purpose: The Director's Cut

Ben Fine ()
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Ben Fine: Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK

No 176, Working Papers from Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK

Abstract: This paper is a lengthier and revised version of the Closing Plenary given to the World Congress of the Association of Social Economics, and Cairncross Lecture, University of Glasgow, June, 2012. Mainstream economics is seen as unfit for purpose because of deficiencies that have long been criticised by a marginalised heterodoxy. These include the taking out of the historical and social even if bringing them back in on the basis of a technical apparatus and architecture that is sorely inappropriate. These observations are illustrated in passing reference to social capital but are particularly appropriate for understanding the weakness of ethics within mainstream economics. An alternative is offered through taking various “entanglements†(such as facts and values) as critical point of departure, leading to the suggestion that ethical systems are subject to the 10 Cs – Constructed, Construed, Conforming, Commodified, Contextual, Contradictory, Closed, Contested, Collective and Chaotic.

Keywords: Economics and ethics; heterodox critique of mainstream; social capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A10 A11 A12 A13 B41 B50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2013-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-pke
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:soa:wpaper:176

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