Post-Autistic Economics Network
post-autistic economics newsletter : issue no. 8, September, 2001
How Did Economics Get Into Such a State?
Geoffrey M. Hodgson (University of Hertfordshire, UK)
I much applaud the recent initiatives of the movement
for a post-autistic economics in
France and the petition for reform from economics graduate students at the
of Cambridge. They are two great rays of hope in an otherwise largely
intellectual scene. It is to be hoped that these initiatives can help to
narrowing and over-formalisation of economics that proceeded apace in the
half of the twentieth century.
1903, Alfred Marshall established one of the first economics degrees in
Britain at the
University of Cambridge. It had a much broader curriculum than is typical in
the year 2001.
If he were still alive, would Marshall get a job at the University of
Cambridge or any other
leading Department of Economics in the world today? Probably not. First,
there is very
little mathematics in Marshall’s writings and he saw mathematics as no more
his letters, Marshall explained that he had ‘little respect for pure theory’.
‘Much of “pure theory” seems to me to be elegant toying’. Along very similar
Marshall wrote to Francis Edgeworth in 1902: ‘In my
view ‘Theory’ is essential. … But
I conceive no more calamitous notion than that abstract, or general, or
economics was economics “proper.”’ (The
Correspondence of Alfred Marshall, ed. John
K. Whitaker, Cambridge University Press, 1996, vol. 2, pp. 256, 280, 393).
Sentiments like these would not help Marshall get a job in a top economics
today. Concerning pluralism and tolerance in economics, much has changed for
in the last 100 years. Economics today is much less concerned with the
economics, the history of ideas, the study of real and relevant social
institutions, and the
detailed practicalities of policy formulation and implementation.
How has economics got in its present state? The ideological polarisation of
the Cold War
period cannot on its own explain why economics took a wrong turning. To some
may explain why Western economics was increasingly dominated by pro-market
from 1948 to 1991. But it cannot explain the degree of narrowing and
the standard economics curriculum in the last 50 years.
Several economists have suggested that the growing mathematicisation
of economics has
been the key impetus behind the narrowing of economics since 1950.
on itself. It creates a peacock’s tail process of positive reinforcement, in
which all that
matters is that which can be put in mathematics: all else is marginalised or
curriculum is thus narrowed. In time, the selection criteria of enticing and
formalisation come to dominate the leading journals and the professorial
processes. In ratchet steps, the economics profession as a whole becomes
dominated by the formalists. And so it goes on, in a narrowing, accelerating,
The positive feedbacks involved with formalisation do much to explain why
into the state that it is. But I do not think that this is the whole story.
not provide a complete explanation of the travails of the social sciences,
we glance outside economics.
Look at sociology. It is in deep trouble. Its central theoretical project of
relating agency to
social structure is in virtual chaos. Its discourse is frequently confounded
by fashionable but
deliberately obscure intellectual bandwagons that never should have been
In addition, having abandoned former theoretical presuppositions, many
sociologists are now
embracing a version of utility maximising ‘economic man’ and proclaiming this
as the ‘new
sociology’, whereas it has little to differentiate itself from Gary Becker-type
economics. Sociology is in such a mess that it no longer has any apparent
ability to define
its own identity.
I do not ignore the fact that some good work is being done within sociology
But ironically, much of the best work in sociology in the last 20 years has
and phenomena that used to be under the purview of the economist.
In the case of sociology, in contrast to economics, formalisation has not
played a significant
role in causing its recent distress. Considering the social sciences as a
more than formalisation has been at work. I am now of the opinion that
something even more
awesome and worrying is at work in modern academia. There are global forces
that threaten the intellectual integrity of all the academic disciplines. The
two leading social
sciences have been an early casualty.
My tentative explanation of these global developments would rely on a theme
central to the third part of my book Economics
and Utopia (Routledge, 1999): the scenario
of growing complexity, knowledge intensity and specialisation under
capitalism. In the
competitive process, capitalism creates ever-more products, technologies and
Although deskilling exists in some sectors, modern capitalism also relies on
variety of skilled specialists. The global workforce divides between the
and the unskilled underclass. Under specific institutional conditions, the
level of required
skill among the skilled population is pulled upwards by the expanding
frontiers of science
and technology, and by the rising managerial burdens of growing social and
Clearly, this scenario has several consequences for modern universities. First,
corporate demands for highly skilled labour have brought the needs and
concerns of the
corporate world into the centre of the academic arena. The knowledge economy
expanded the hold of commercialisation inside the bastions of knowledge.
While a good
dose of real worldliness in stuffy ivory towers can often do a power of good,
it can also
corrupt and undermine. The risk is that the universities will loose their
aura of detached
enquiry. The commercialisation of learning and enquiry can threaten the
institutional function of universities as centres of relatively detached
the social sciences, a recent effect of this commercialisation has been the
of student recruitment into economics and sociology in favour of the business
Economics has reacted in an attempt to maintain its position and prestige, by
its feathered head-dress of formalisation. This accelerated a process of mathematicisation
that has its own independent institutional logic, as described above.
as a whole has imploded in an orgy of self-doubt. Some have escaped the
departments to pursue (sometimes excellent) case studies of business
business schools. But the theoretical core of sociology has become an
is only part of the story. The accelerating process of specialisation and the
volume of knowledge – as described in my Economics
and Utopia – have just as serious
effects on academic life. The number of scientific journals and other
exploded. At the same time, science itself is subdividing endlessly into a
of subdisciplines. As a consequence, it is
increasingly difficult to keep up-to-date in any
subdiscipline, let alone in a whole subject. The
crucial result is that wide-ranging critical
reflection and interdisciplinary conversation are increasingly impaired. It
is ever more difficult
to take a more general view, and make an impact across the disciplines.
Generalists of the
orientation of Marx, Mill, Marshall, Durkheim,
Pareto, Weber or Schumpeter would find it
difficult to obtain a foothold in the modern university. Today, as the grand
view is more
difficult to obtain, the big questions fall out of favour. The disciplines
narrow down on
relatively minute technicalities. Sadly, the grand vista is lost.
believe that the causes of the ills of economics are not confined to
Accordingly, its restoration to health will be all the more difficult. The
modern university may
require a Humboldtian reform similar to that which
made the nineteenth century German
universities the envy of the world. A key feature of this academic revolution
philosophy replaced religion at the apex of all enquiry. The pursuit of truth
purpose of the university, and all students were required to understand the
problems of truth and explanation. The faculty of philosophy received full
equality of status
with the other faculties. We now take it for granted that every scientist
should have some
training in mathematics and statistics. But today an induction in philosophy
exception rather than the rule.
should take a similarly general and prestigious position, in both the natural
the social sciences. Philosophy is a skill that is transferable to multiple
fields of inquiry.
Hence it can enable communication between disciplines. It encourages a
critical frame of
mind and can help locate the big questions. Scientific development is
facilitated by a common
philosophical awareness of problems of truth, meaning, testing, modelling,
prediction, unification and progress
addition, I would suggest that every student scientist should have some
training in the
history of at least his or her own subject. There should be a widespread
historical precedents for successful or failed innovation in science. The
development of science can be guided and inspired by knowledge of its own
just as the requirement of mathematics is now virtually universal, so too
be some philosophy, and relevant parts of the history of ideas. All three
should be part of
the compulsory core curriculum of every science. I do not know how this
Humboldtian revolution can come about. Perhaps, at
least in Paris and in Cambridge, it
has already begun.
Prof. Hodgson's latest book, How
Economics Forgot History: The Problem of Historical Specificity in Social
has just been published by Routledge. For details
go to: http://www.geoffrey-hodgson.ws/wsn565D.html
Geoffrey Hodgson (2001) “How Did Economics
Get into Such a State”, post-autistic economics newsletter : issue no.
8, July, article 2. http://www.btinternet.com/~pae_news/review/issue8.htm