ABSTRACT
Mainstream microeconomic theory remained conceptually the same as it was in the beginning of the last century. If Walras and Marshall were alive, they would be perfectly able to understand and, considering their outstanding analytical and mathematical abilities, to profess the main topics of it. The explanation lies in the fact that microeconomics continues to refer to a simple world, the aspiration of which is to reach a stable equilibrium between demand and supply. Therefore, as it is actually professed in undergraduate and graduate classrooms, it continues to promote technique rather than substance, exaggerating the role of abstract modelling. To elevate the substance in microeconomic analysis, entries from other fields dealing with human behaviour are suggested here: history, psychology and sociology. Economic history offers many tales of miscalculation leading to bankruptcy, economic stagnation and decline. The historical cases of past economic failures will help students to realise that they live in a complex and imperfect world. Moreover, research from behavioural psychology and cognitive science can be used to substantiate the nature and characteristics of real economic behaviour. Finally, economic sociology will help young economists to realise that the quintessential characteristic of humans is that they live embedded within a common system of formal and informal institutions, including moral values and social habits, which give them the sense of social existence and identity. Teaching microeconomics in a complex social world turns out to be a struggle against disciplinary isolation inside economics departments.
