ABSTRACT
By mainstream economics we may refer to the type of economics that dominates the modern core journals of the subject. It includes a variety of doctrines and the critic must be careful to distinguish them. But there are particular themes and assumptions that pervade modern mainstream economics. The argument here is that, as a result of an exclusive pursuit of such universal theories, mainstream economics becomes largely incapable of dealing with cultural or historical particularities. As a result – despite the rise of the ‘new institutional economics’ – mainstream economic theory, in a sense, remains predominantly institutionblind. Insufficient attention is given to establishing theories that apply with adequate sensitivity to particular, historically specific, economic mechanisms or institutions.
