Philip Pilkington: Neoclassical Economics and the Foreclosing of Dissent – The Inner Death of a Social Science
By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies
– Friedrich Nietzsche
Heterodox economists – that is, those that do not subscribe to the neoclassical research program – often claim that they are marginalised within the profession. Anyone who has had dealings with academia would instinctively take such complaints with a pinch of salt. Indeed, academic quarrels often have as much to do with who said what at a dinner party as they have to do with questions of high theory. Academics, for better or for worse, are often characterised by their independent-mindedness… and with it: their stubbornness. This often leads them to partake in intellectual factionalism.
However, when I started studying economics and talking to heterodox economists, it quickly struck me that something wholly different was going on.
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