From Heterodoxy to Orthodoxy and Vice Versa: Economics and Social Sciences in the Division of Academic Work

Abstract

The term "heterodox economics" has been in existence for several decades. Recent revival of heterodox economics can be regarded as a growing criticism of economists within the own profession of economics. Modern economics is designed as a one-worldcapitalism without history and without regional specifications, without institutions, and without real human agents. Heterodox approaches have the aim to underline that different institutions matter, including religion, language, family structures and networks, systems of education, and industrial relations. Taking the discussion within a broader framework of the history of science acknowleges divergencies and convergencies between different approaches in economics that are also in permanent recomposition. The discussion comes up with the interpretation that recent academic developments provide chances for new modes of intellectual reintegration of formerly disparate areas.

What is Socioeconomics? An Overview of Theories, Methods, and Themes in the Field

“…It is perhaps more likely that the economic orthodoxy will split into a number of more independent currents, some of them converging with heterodox lines of thinking (cf. Bögenhold, 2010Bögenhold, , 2011; see also Davis, 2008), or becomes at least more transdisciplinary and stressing complexity, rather than that socioeconomics will end the developmental path of a neoclassical orthodox economics that does not exist anymore as a coherent entity. This not only refers to the abandonment of the strict homo oeconomicus concept, but also includes recognition of genuine social or intersubjective causes of economic action, i.e., the gradual replacement of methodological individualism as standard methodological approach.…”

Economics (Only) Now: The Temporal Limitations of Economics as Part of a Critical Social Studies Pedagogy

“…This failure to conceptualize the utility of economics in the past is in keeping with a general failure of the discipline of economics to explore the past, either in economic models (c.f. [75][76][77]) or the history of economic thought [15,[78][79][80], but the noticeable gap between social studies informing civic action and the silence surrounding economics' potential role in that action is significant. Freire writes that in order to achieve praxis, people must "emerge from time, discover temporality, and free themselves from 'today'" [33] (p. 4).…”

“…Yet this indicates that for a critically-minded social studies educator, the inclusion of economics has a vital function as part of a counter-hegemonic stance informed by a political clarity that recognizes the "sociopolitical and economic realities that shape lives and their capacity to transform such material and symbolic conditions" [37] (p. 98). Unfortunately, the discipline of economics provides limited support in extending economic analysis into the past [75][76][77], and rarely takes up social issues of race, class, and gender [84][85][86][87] that might be relevant to an active pursuit of justice as a citizen. Therefore, critically minded teachers, teacher educators, and preservice teachers should consider the temporal connections between their purposes for teaching and the way that economics functions within those purposes as part of a transformation based system of teacher preparation [88].…”

History of Economic Thought as an Analytic Tool: why Past Intellectual Ideas Must Be Acknowledged as Lighthouses for the Future

“…Man contemporary academic disciplines, not only economics, are experiencing a flood of material in terms of publications and new people (Bögenhold 2010). The topics have multiplied in many directions and whole new areas of discourse have emerged (Chafim 2016), each with separate research organizations, global conferences, journals, curricula, academic career opportunities, as well as patterns and publication opportunities.…”