Abstract
In the history of neoclassical economic theory, there have been two major categories of rejoinders to critics of the theory: one, that the critics did not adequately understand the structure of the theory, and thus mistook for essential what was merely convenient; or two, that the criticism was old hat, and had been rendered harmless by recent (and technically abstruse) innovations with which the critic was unacquainted.1 The freedom of passage between these defenses has proven to be the bane of not only those opposed to neoclassicism, but also to those who have felt the need for reform and reformulation of economic theory from within. It has fostered the impression that any arbitrary phenomenon can be incorporated within the ambit of conventional neoclassical theory with enough ingenuity, therefore rendering any particular change in “assumptions” as innocuous as any other, and thus rendering them all equally arbitrary.
“…he believed that human beings, when it had been clearly explained to them what were their vital needs and necessities, would not only altrustically but selfishly become honest and reasonable: they would sacrifice what might be short term advantagesfor long term ends. What he never saw was that in politics as in other forms of human activity, human beings are for the most part interested in struggle, in manoeuvrings for power, in risks and even unpleasantnesses; and that there are often in direct opposition to what might reasonably be seen as their long term ends…”
“This was one reason why he could so often make rings around his opponents by reasoning: he believed in it; while they, although they said they did, ultimately did not. Yet what they felt instinctively, and might have answered [him] by, was traditionally unspoken. They could not say to him in effect — Look, in your reasoning you leave out of account something about human nature: you leave out the fact that human beings with part of themselves like turmoil and something to grumble at and perhaps even failure to feel comfortable in: your economic perfect blueprint will not work simply because people will not want it to.”
—(Mosley, 1983, pp. 68–69)
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Mirowski, P. (1986). Institutions as a Solution Concept in a Game Theory Context. In: Samuelson, L. (eds) Microeconomic Theory. Recent Economic Thought Series, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4219-6_11
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