The crisis in economics: What can it tell us about social science?

Abstract

The discipline of economics is currently facing a severe crisis, in the wake of the financial collapse of 2008. But there have been growing criticisms of the discipline, from within as well as from outside, for over two decades. In this paper the lessons that can be learned from this crisis by other social sciences are examined. It is argued that the main source of the problem is not so much the character of the discipline itself as the public role that it has been assigned, and taken on, purporting to offer a comprehensive practical perspective that serves as a basis for policy-making, and for practical decision-making more generally. Many social scientists crave a similar role for their own discipline, or for a broader interdisciplinary social science. In this article, I argue that this represents a failure to learn the lesson that the crisis in economics teaches.

Keywords:

• crisis in economics
• influence of economics
• public role of social science

Notes on contributor

Martyn Hammersley is Professor of Educational and Social Research at The Open University, UK. He has carried out research in the sociology of education and the sociology of the media. However, much of his work has been concerned with the methodological issues surrounding social enquiry. He has written several books, including: (with Paul Atkinson) Ethnography: Principles in practice (Third edition Routledge 2007); Educational research, policymaking and practice (Paul Chapman, 2002), and The myth of research-based policy and practice (Sage, 2013).

Notes

1. This statement is widely cited on the Internet, but I have been unable to track down when or where it was made.

2. There have been a number of initiatives aimed at changing the economics curriculum, for example the setting up of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, sponsored by George Soros, and the founding of the Post-Autistic Economics Network by students in Paris and Cambridge (Fullbrook, 2003), the Post-Crash Economics Society by students at the University of Manchester, and similar societies at several other UK universities. There have also been protests in the USA: see https://rwer.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/an-open-letter-to-greg-mankiw/. Dissident voices within economics calling for radical change in the discipline have long been present, see for example Bell and Kristol, 1981 (and the whole issue in which this article appears), Eichner (1983), Brockway (1991), Ormerod (1994), and Heilbroner and Milberg (1995). For more recent examples, see Fullbrook (2004), Klein (2006), Marglin (2008), and Turner (2013). The growth of various competing versions of economics, from experimental to feminist approaches, has also been an important factor.

3. On this see Krugman (2009).

4. On the case of universities, see Collini (2012). I am not suggesting that economic considerations are entirely spurious in these contexts, simply noting that, in the name of economics, they have been turned into the dominating or sole concern.

5. See Kuhn (1963) on the role of dogma in the teaching of science.

6. This could, of course, be seen as the result of economists' applying their theoretical principles to their own circumstances.

7. While there has been increased competition from graduates of more specific and applied courses – for example in accounting, marketing, human resources, etc – these courses themselves rely on content from economics.

8. This has, of course, been selective, according to who was deviating, and how. Thus, the fact that large corporations exercise oligopolistic power has not usually been treated as significant deviation, whereas the exercise of power by trade unions frequently has been. See Tribe's (2009) interesting account of the sidelining of Henry Simons by other figures associated with the Chicago School of Economics for his advocacy of the break-up of large corporations in the name of laissez-faire.