Dimitris Milonakis – författare

EKONOMISKT VETANDE Efter den globala finanskrisen 2008 har den ekonomiska vetenskapen hamnat i blickfånget. Studentrörelser och heterodoxa ekonomer har kritiserat det dominerande ekonomiska paradigmet och krävt ökad pluralism. Den senaste tidens politiska utveckling har blottat nyliberalismens brister och aktualiserat frågan om dess koppling till den ekonomiska vetenskapen. I Fronesis nr 54–55 fördjupar vi oss i det ekonomiska vetandets förutsättningar. Det ekonomiska vetandet i förändring Efter den globala finanskrisen 2008 har blickarna riktats mot den ekonomiska vetenskapen och dem som producerar den. I vilken utsträckning har den ekonomiska krisen också inneburit en kris för nationalekonomin? Ute i Europa har kritiken av den moderna nationalekonomins dominerande paradigm lett till mobilisering av nya studentrörelser som kräver ökad pluralism. Bakom dem står alternativa heterodoxa ekonomer som bygger på teoretiska insikter från bland andra Marx och Keynes, men som verkar i ett trångt akademiskt utrymme utanför den ekonomiska huvudfåran. Debatten om den nationalekonomiska vetenskapen är i dessa sammanhang också knuten till frågorna om vilket slags ekonomisk politik som är möjlig att föra och hur vi ska förstå nyliberalismen. Vänstern har länge inriktat sitt samhällsteoretiska och politiska intresse mot kulturella och symboliska aspekter av makt och dominans, men har mer eller mindre lämnat det ekonomiska fältet därhän. Med Fronesis nr 54–55 vill vi röra oss bortom en simpel kritik av nationalekonomin och fördjupa förståelsen av villkoren för det ekonomiska vetandet. Numret introducerar för en svensk publik en rad centrala samtida teoretiker som belyser frågorna ur olika perspektiv. Flera av numrets texter handlar om den neoklassiska teorins dominans inom nationalekonomin. Dimitris Milonakis beskriver dess framväxt ur 1800-talets bredare politiska ekonomi. Sociologen Marion Fourcade och hennes medförfattare försöker förstå ekonomernas överlägsenhet. Den feministiska ekonomen Julie A. Nelson visar hur nationalekonomin genomsyras av ett genuskodat symbolspråk. Frågan om vad som utmärker heterodox ekonomisk teori diskuteras av den heterodoxe ekonomen och filosofen Tony Lawson. Ekonomhistorikern Josef Taalbi menar att vi bör ta fasta på goda idéer från olika traditioner som utgår från Marx, Keynes och Schumpeter. Vi undersöker också förhållandet mellan nyliberalismen och den neoklassiska ekonomin. Den ekonomiske idéhistorikern Philip Mirowski menar att vänstern måste förstå nyliberalismen som en medveten ekonomisk-politisk idéströmning som inte är identisk med nationalekonomins huvudfåra. Filosofen Jason Read hävdar i stället att vi kan förstå nyliberalismen som subjektivitet, som förverkligandet av homo oeconomicus. Dan Hirschman och Elisabeth Popp Berman undersöker i sin text betingelserna för att ekonomiskt vetande ska omsättas i politisk praktik. Innehåll i Fronesis nr 54–55 (328 sidor): Kajsa Borgnäs och Anders Hylmö: Det ekonomiska vetandet i förändring Ladda ner som PDF Anders Hylmö: Den moderna nationalekonomin som vetenskaplig stil och disciplin Dimitris Milonakis: Lärdomar från krisen Marion Fourcade, Étienne Ollion och Yann Algan: Ekonomernas överlägsenhet Kajsa Borgnäs: Utanför boxen, eller Vad är heterodox nationalekonomi? Lars Pålsson Syll: Tony Lawson och kritiken av den nationalekonomiska vetenskapen – en introduktion Tony Lawson: Den heterodoxa ekonomins natur Josef Taalbi: Realistisk ekonomisk teori? Erik Bengtsson: Den heterodoxa nationalekonomins materiella förutsättningar Julie A. Nelson: Genusmetaforer och nationalekonomi Linda Nyberg: Nyliberalism, politik och ekonomi Philip Mirowski: Den politiska rörelsen som inte vågade säga sitt namn Jason Read: En genealogi över homo oeconomicus Kajsa Borgnäs: Den vetenskapliga ekonomins politiska makt Daniel Hirschman och Elizabeth Popp Berman: Skapar nationalekonomer politik? Peter Gerlach, Marika Lindgren Åsbrink och Ola Pettersson, intervjuade av Daniel Mathisen: Allt annat lika Redaktörer: Kajsa Borgnäs och Anders Hylmö Redaktion: Erik Bengtsson, Dany Kessel, Linda Nyberg, Lars Pålsson Syll, Josef Taalbi och Stefan de Vylder

Economics has become a monolithic science, variously described as formalistic and autistic with neoclassical orthodoxy reigning supreme. So argue Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine in this new major work of critical recollection. The authors show how economics was once rich, diverse, multidimensional and pluralistic, and unravel the processes that lead to orthodoxy’s current predicament. The book details how political economy became economics through the desocialisation and the dehistoricisation of the dismal science, accompanied by the separation of economics from the other social sciences, especially economic history and sociology. It is argued that recent attempts from within economics to address the social and the historical have failed to acknowledge long standing debates amongst economists, historians and other social scientists. This has resulted in an impoverished historical and social content within mainstream economics.The book ranges over the shifting role of the historical and the social in economic theory, the shifting boundaries between the economic and the non-economic, all within a methodological context. Schools of thought and individuals, that have been neglected or marginalised, are treated in full, including classical political economy and Marx, the German and British historical schools, American institutionalism, Weber and Schumpeter and their programme of Socialökonomik, and the Austrian school. At the same time, developments within the mainstream tradition from marginalism through Marshall and Keynes to general equilibrium theory are also scrutinised, and the clashes between the various camps from the famous Methodenstreit to the fierce debates of the 1930s and beyond brought to the fore. The prime rationale underpinning this account drawn from the past is to put the case for political economy back on the agenda. This is done by treating economics as a social science once again, rather than as a positive science, as has been the inclination since the time of Jevons and Walras. It involves transcending the boundaries of the social sciences, but in a particular way that is in exactly the opposite direction now being taken by "economics imperialism". Drawing on the rich traditions of the past, the reintroduction and full incorporation of the social and the historical into the main corpus of political economy will be possible in the future.

Economics has become a monolithic science, variously described as formalistic and autistic with neoclassical orthodoxy reigning supreme. So argue Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine in this new major work of critical recollection. The authors show how economics was once rich, diverse, multidimensional and pluralistic, and unravel the processes that lead to orthodoxy’s current predicament. The book details how political economy became economics through the desocialisation and the dehistoricisation of the dismal science, accompanied by the separation of economics from the other social sciences, especially economic history and sociology. It is argued that recent attempts from within economics to address the social and the historical have failed to acknowledge long standing debates amongst economists, historians and other social scientists. This has resulted in an impoverished historical and social content within mainstream economics.The book ranges over the shifting role of the historical and the social in economic theory, the shifting boundaries between the economic and the non-economic, all within a methodological context. Schools of thought and individuals, that have been neglected or marginalised, are treated in full, including classical political economy and Marx, the German and British historical schools, American institutionalism, Weber and Schumpeter and their programme of Socialökonomik, and the Austrian school. At the same time, developments within the mainstream tradition from marginalism through Marshall and Keynes to general equilibrium theory are also scrutinised, and the clashes between the various camps from the famous Methodenstreit to the fierce debates of the 1930s and beyond brought to the fore. The prime rationale underpinning this account drawn from the past is to put the case for political economy back on the agenda. This is done by treating economics as a social science once again, rather than as a positive science, as has been the inclination since the time of Jevons and Walras. It involves transcending the boundaries of the social sciences, but in a particular way that is in exactly the opposite direction now being taken by "economics imperialism". Drawing on the rich traditions of the past, the reintroduction and full incorporation of the social and the historical into the main corpus of political economy will be possible in the future.

Is or has economics ever been the imperial social science? Could or should it ever be so? These are the central concerns of this book. It involves a critical reflection on the process of how economics became the way it is, in terms of a narrow and intolerant orthodoxy, that has, nonetheless, increasingly directed its attention to appropriating the subject matter of other social sciences through the process termed "economics imperialism". In other words, the book addresses the shifting boundaries between economics and the other social sciences as seen from the confines of the dismal science, with some reflection on the responses to the economic imperialists by other disciplines.Significantly, an old economics imperialism is identified of the "as if market" style most closely associated with Gary Becker, the public choice theory of Buchanan and Tullock and cliometrics. But this has given way to a more "revolutionary" form of economics imperialism associated with the information-theoretic economics of Akerlof and Stiglitz, and the new institutional economics of Coase, Wiliamson and North. Embracing one "new" field after another, economics imperialism reaches its most extreme version in the form of "freakonomics", the economic theory of everything on the basis of the most shallow principles.By way of contrast and as a guiding critical thread, a thorough review is offered of the appropriate principles underpinning political economy and its relationship to social science, and how these have been and continue to be deployed. The case is made for political economy with an interdisciplinary character, able to bridge the gap between economics and other social sciences, and draw upon and interrogate the nature of contemporary capitalism.

Is or has economics ever been the imperial social science? Could or should it ever be so? These are the central concerns of this book. It involves a critical reflection on the process of how economics became the way it is, in terms of a narrow and intolerant orthodoxy, that has, nonetheless, increasingly directed its attention to appropriating the subject matter of other social sciences through the process termed "economics imperialism". In other words, the book addresses the shifting boundaries between economics and the other social sciences as seen from the confines of the dismal science, with some reflection on the responses to the economic imperialists by other disciplines.Significantly, an old economics imperialism is identified of the "as if market" style most closely associated with Gary Becker, the public choice theory of Buchanan and Tullock and cliometrics. But this has given way to a more "revolutionary" form of economics imperialism associated with the information-theoretic economics of Akerlof and Stiglitz, and the new institutional economics of Coase, Wiliamson and North. Embracing one "new" field after another, economics imperialism reaches its most extreme version in the form of "freakonomics", the economic theory of everything on the basis of the most shallow principles.By way of contrast and as a guiding critical thread, a thorough review is offered of the appropriate principles underpinning political economy and its relationship to social science, and how these have been and continue to be deployed. The case is made for political economy with an interdisciplinary character, able to bridge the gap between economics and other social sciences, and draw upon and interrogate the nature of contemporary capitalism.

Is or has economics ever been the imperial social science? Could or should it ever be so? These are the central concerns of this book. It involves a critical reflection on the process of how economics became the way it is, in terms of a narrow and intolerant orthodoxy, that has, nonetheless, increasingly directed its attention to appropriating the subject matter of other social sciences through the process termed "economics imperialism". In other words, the book addresses the shifting boundaries between economics and the other social sciences as seen from the confines of the dismal science, with some reflection on the responses to the economic imperialists by other disciplines.Significantly, an old economics imperialism is identified of the "as if market" style most closely associated with Gary Becker, the public choice theory of Buchanan and Tullock and cliometrics. But this has given way to a more "revolutionary" form of economics imperialism associated with the information-theoretic economics of Akerlof and Stiglitz, and the new institutional economics of Coase, Wiliamson and North. Embracing one "new" field after another, economics imperialism reaches its most extreme version in the form of "freakonomics", the economic theory of everything on the basis of the most shallow principles.By way of contrast and as a guiding critical thread, a thorough review is offered of the appropriate principles underpinning political economy and its relationship to social science, and how these have been and continue to be deployed. The case is made for political economy with an interdisciplinary character, able to bridge the gap between economics and other social sciences, and draw upon and interrogate the nature of contemporary capitalism.

Is or has economics ever been the imperial social science? Could or should it ever be so? These are the central concerns of this book. It involves a critical reflection on the process of how economics became the way it is, in terms of a narrow and intolerant orthodoxy, that has, nonetheless, increasingly directed its attention to appropriating the subject matter of other social sciences through the process termed "economics imperialism". In other words, the book addresses the shifting boundaries between economics and the other social sciences as seen from the confines of the dismal science, with some reflection on the responses to the economic imperialists by other disciplines.Significantly, an old economics imperialism is identified of the "as if market" style most closely associated with Gary Becker, the public choice theory of Buchanan and Tullock and cliometrics. But this has given way to a more "revolutionary" form of economics imperialism associated with the information-theoretic economics of Akerlof and Stiglitz, and the new institutional economics of Coase, Wiliamson and North. Embracing one "new" field after another, economics imperialism reaches its most extreme version in the form of "freakonomics", the economic theory of everything on the basis of the most shallow principles.By way of contrast and as a guiding critical thread, a thorough review is offered of the appropriate principles underpinning political economy and its relationship to social science, and how these have been and continue to be deployed. The case is made for political economy with an interdisciplinary character, able to bridge the gap between economics and other social sciences, and draw upon and interrogate the nature of contemporary capitalism.