Mathematical Modelling and Ideology in the Economics Academy: competing explanations of the failings of the modern discipline?

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• Tony Lawson (Cambridge University)
• Monday 27 February 2012, 20:00-22:00
• Clare College, Trinity Lane Cambridge, CB2 1TL, in the Latimer Room, in the Old Court.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Cambridge Social Ontology Group.

Drinks from 19:30

The widespread and long-lived failings of academic economics are due to an overreliance on largely inappropriate formalistic methods of analysis. This is an assessment I have long maintained. Many heterodox economists, however, appear to hold instead that the central problem is a form of political-economic ideology. Specifically, it is widely contended in heterodox circles that the discipline goes astray just because many economists are committed to a portrayal of the market economy as a smoothly or efficiently functioning system or some such, a portrayal that, whether sincerely held or otherwise, is inconsistent with the workings of social reality. Here I critically examine the contention that a form of political-economic ideology of this sort is the primary problem and assess its explanatory power. I conclude that the contention does not fare very well. I do not, though, deny that ideology of some sort has a major impact on the output of the modern economics academy. However it is of a different nature to any form typically attributed to the mainstream, and works in somewhat indirect and complex ways. Having raised the question of the impact of ideology I take the opportunity to explore its play in the economics academy more generally

This talk is part of the Cambridge Realist Workshop series.

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• Cambridge Realist Workshop
• Cambridge Social Ontology Group (CSOG)
• Clare College, Trinity Lane Cambridge, CB2 1TL, in the Latimer Room, in the Old Court

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