ABSTRACT
John Henry (2009) powerfully argued that the dominance of neoclassical economics obstructs criticisms of its particular “vision” of the economy and the reality of capitalism. Henry advocates the need for history of economic thought to provide students with the ability to appreciate the “neoclassical apparatus” as a “political statement.” Henry has long maintained that ideas are socially constructed and disseminated in such a way as to retain the dominance of a particular class. Challenges to the prevailing set of legitimate ideas are resisted. The default favors the status quo. Henry states: “No society, regardless of the form of its organization, has ever permitted freedom of ideas” (Henry 1990, 7). In this belief Henry associated the freedom of ideas with a more overarching emancipatory claim. Freedom of ideas enables a more effective challenging of the dominant class. At a less abstract level, this chapter argues that Henry’s broad argument resonates with George DeMartino’s (2011a) eloquent observation that economics and economists “routinely affect the life chances of others,” and as such there is a need for a professional ethics in economics. For many the financial crisis represented a salutary moment for the economics profession, although as, for example, Hodgson et al. (2009) argue, the response has not necessarily been convincing in terms of critical reflection or on the need to reform the teaching of economics. Indeed, nothing fundamental has changed in the nature of contemporary mainstream economics (Mirowski 2013), or the tenor of the dominant approach to economic policy. DeMartino’s advocacy of an ethical code in economics is compelling. It challenges the ethics of economic practice and the practices of economists.
Yet, like the architecture of the financial system that precipitated the crisis, the citadel of the mainstream in economics remains largely intact. Certainly, John Davis (2011) argues that homo economicus as a doctrine to some extent resembles fundamentalism in religion-that is, Henry’s political apparatus-and hence is a barrier to pluralism and a source of “paradigm blindness” (for example, Fischbacher-Smith 2012). In this chapter I argue that the extension of DeMartino’s (2011b, 42) association of “professional responsibilities attending economic practice” to teaching and curriculum design is a fundamental duty of care. The teaching of economics is the most obvious means of reproduction and therefore in perpetuating the inherent paradigm blindness of the standard approach with its attendant disregard for pluralism-Henry’s political apparatus. The duty of care advocated here echoes Henry’s call for economics programs to expose students to alternative schools of thought as a means of liberating students and therefore future economists, and by extension wider society. There is some speculative discussion over whether an explicit ethical code recognized as a duty of care could potentially act as a source of relegating the false prophets of mainstream economics and in affording economists the opportunity to practice economics in a more ethical fashion, and therefore be more adroit in recognizing what Henry terms as the “illusions” of the standard faith. The remainder of the chapter is structured as follows. The following section outlines and discusses Henry’s notion of the social origin and dissemination of ideas. The third section briefly considers the financial crisis and its impact on mainstream economics. From here, drawing from DeMartino’s work, the case for a more ethical economics is outlined. Then care theory in the context of economics pedagogy is set out. A brief conclusion follows.
