ABSTRACT
Most serious observers of modern economics accept that the latter is not in a healthy state. It is dominated by a mathematical ‘modelling’ project whose results repeatedly fail by the usual explanatory and predictive criteria to which project members claim to adhere. Yet the usual response to failure is not to give the methods in question lower priority in the economist toolbox. Rather it is to empty the toolbox of all other methods in order to focus the mind on making progress with the mathematical devices that are so uncritically thought to be the proper tools of any self-respecting science. What is to be done if this situation is to be transformed? The mathematical modellers dominate the profession. They can be bypassed. But in the academy, at present, this can be meaningfully achieved only by moving elsewhere, to discussions of economics within departments of sociology, human geography, politics, anthropology, business management and such like. Are there any useful strategies for those who wish to stay in economics and seek to engage those in power? Here the critique must be an internal one. An internal or immanent critique proceeds by way of working from certain internally accepted features of a project or paradigm, and pointing out that they lead to problems, inconsistencies or limits elsewhere within the project or paradigm, conceived on that project’s own terms. Unless we start from some assumptions or presumptions accepted by, or preconceptions of, the mainstream mathematical
modellers, we will not even be in with a hope of engaging. Although by no means sufficient, an internalist approach does seem to be necessitated. How might an internal critique be effectively executed? There will not be a unique approach. Nor do I think that all possible approaches are likely to be equally effective, or even to carry equal potential to be effective.
