ABSTRACT
Heterodox economics is a multifaceted, layered object comprising complex groups of similarly complex individuals. Heterodox economics is a pluralist community with a diversity of origins, purposes, and standards for economic reasoning, ranging amongst others from history and philosophy of economics, to modelling, community organising, and policymaking. Heterodox economics can therefore be likened to a eudaemonic bubble that enables the flourishing of its members. Whilst heterodox economics is a community that reaches across most continents, it differs from the kind of transnational thought collective of a Mont Pelerin Society (MPS). The social epistemology also seems to differ from the MPS as heterodox economists are primarily academics who seek to influence society via academia. The interviews show that heterodox economists share a kairotic experience, that is, a moment at which individuals make a significant and usually irrevocable decision to reject mainstream economics as a way to understand economic phenomena.
