Brands of Economics and the Trojan Horse of Pluralism

Abstract

This paper examines the current status and prospects of heterodox approaches to economics in relation to the problem of marketing ideas to groups of potential users who see the world in very different ways. It draws lessons from the changing status of behavioural economics and highlights the marketing problems that arise between heterodox economists whose perspectives overlap only partially. Its principal message is that the best hope for heterodox economics may lie in taking a less openly combative approach than hitherto when trying to win over mainstream economists and instead using strategies of stealth based on the empirical advantages of pluralistic applied research methods.