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Tony Lawson has become a major figure of intellectual controversy on the back of juxtaposing two relatively simple and seemingly innocuous ideas. He has argued firstly that success in science depends on finding and using methods, including modes of reasoning, appropriate to the nature of the phenomena being studied, and also that there are important differences between the nature of the objects of study of natural sciences and those of social science.
Ontology and Economics Ecologcial economics conceptualizes our society as embedded within the environment and our economic system as embedded within society and the environment. Is ecological economics for rebels? Accounting for natural resources In this video, Clara Mattei investigates the function of austerity in relation the stabilization of capitalism as a form of social order build around private property, wage labor and class relations. In order to develop this argument, she situates austerity in the history of World War 1 and its revolutionary aftermath. Zooming in on the politicization of the economy and the associated threat to class society that emerged in the period, she highlights how austerity was a „tool of reaction“ that was successful in curtailing demands for economic democracy and a society free from class oppression. The Capital Order - How Economists Invented Austerity & Paved the Way to Fascism Quinn Slobodian a historian of modern Germany and international history analysis of current development in the Mont Pèlerin Society and therefore neo-liberalism. He sees neo-liberalist thinkers less as believers in the self-healing power of markets, but more as ordo-liberal Globalists who wanted to protect the markets from post-war politics and especially mass democracy. Their goal of global capitalism is still strong, however sceptics in the Mont Pèlerin Society are rising, which see international migration as a threat to Globalisation. Therefore, turning neo-liberal policies away from international institutions like the EU back towards the national states as new defenders of the markets as well as international trade and investments. (A development which can be seen in the Friedrich A. von Hayek-Gesellschaft and especially in the "liberal" wing of the German rightwing populist party AfD) Neo-liberal Globalism and the Backlash from Within By conducting a discourse analysis (SKAD) in the field of academic economics textbooks, this paper aims at reconstructing frames and identity options offered to undergraduate students relating to the questions ‘Why study economics?’ and ‘Who do I become by studying economics?’. The analysis showed three major frames and respective identity offerings, all of which are contextualized theoretically, with prominent reference to the Foucauldian reflection of the science of Political Economy. Surprisingly, none of them encourages the student to think critically, as could have been expected in a pedagogical context. Taken together, economics textbooks appear as a “total structure of actions brought to bear upon possible action” (Foucault), therefore, as a genuine example of Foucauldian power structures. The power of economic textbooks: A discourse analysis From the two premises that (1) economies are complex systems and (2) the accumulation of knowledge about reality is desirable, I derive the conclusion that pluralism with regard to economic research programs is a more viable position to hold than monism. To substantiate this claim an epistemological framework of how scholars study their objects of inquiry and relate their models to reality is discussed. Furthermore, it is argued that given the current institutions of our scientific system, economics self-organizes towards a state of scientific unity. Since such a state is epistemologically inferior to a state of plurality, critical intervention is desirable. The Complexity of Economies and Pluralism in Economics Introduction Economics is by necessity a multi paradigmatic science Several theoretical structures exist side by side and each theory can never be more than a partial theory Rothschild 1999 Likening scientific work to the self coordinating invisible hand of the market Michael Polanyi cautioned strongly against centralized attempts to steer … Making Many Maps: Why We Need an Interested Pluralism in Economics and How to Get There