Ignorance and Ideological Hegemony: A Critique of Neoclassical Economics

Herb Thompson
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Herb Thompson: Department of Economics, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA 6150, Australia. email: hthompso@central.murdoch.edu.au

Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, 1997, vol. 8, issue 4, 291-305

Abstract: Neoclassical economists increasingly devise compelling, mathematically elegant hypotheses with dubious, to say the least, policy relevance. They are also most reluctant to engage in conversation with alternative paradigmatic schools (eg., feminists, Marxists, Institutionalists or Post-Keynesians). In doing so they have become intellectually incestuous, and unconcerned about being unaware of what they don’t know (defined as ignorance-squared).Ignorance-squared does not merely imply a lack of knowledge, but also the possibility that it is being produced. It is argued that neoclassical economists, as traditional intellectuals, cultivate the social production of ignorance, and propagate it to their students, in the struggle for ideas. This is done through narrow pedagogy, delineation of research parameters, and by constraining the production and presentation of non-neoclassical knowledge. While a number of reasons exist for the intellectual narrowing of the discipline, one fundamental answer to the query “why is this the case?†may be found in the notion of ideological hegemony.

Date: 1997
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