The Incoherent Emperor: A Heterodox Critique of Neoclassical Microeconomic Theory

Abstract

It is somewhat common for heterodox economists to come to the defense of neoclassical microeconomic theory. This is due to many reasons, but perhaps the commonest one is ignorance. It seems that most heterodox economists are not aware of the many critiques or that as a collective they completely undermine neoclassical theory. The objective of the article is to dispel ignorance by using the existing criticisms to delineate a systematic critique of the core components of neoclassical microeconomic theory: the supply and demand explanation of the price mechanism and its application to competitive markets. The critique starts by examining the choices, preferences, utility functions, and demand curves, followed by examining production, costs, factor input demand functions and partial equilibrium, and ending with perfect competition and the supply curve. In the conclusion, the implications of the results will be extended to the firm and imperfectly competitive markets, and then the question whether general equilibrium theory or game theory can save neoclassical microeconomic theory.neoclassical microeconomic theory, heterodox critique,

Assumption Without Representation: The Unacknowledged Abstraction from Communities and Social Goods

“…With the "unraveling of the Newtonian synthesis" in relativity and quantum mechanics in the 20 th century, the similar "modern project" in physics (and philosophy) broke down (Toulmin 1992(Toulmin :139, 2001Carey 1999:9). The growing literature on "what's wrong with economics" - Ward 1972;Sen 1977Sen , 1979Bell and Kristol 1981;Etzioni 1988;Benton 1990;Boulding 1992;Rosenberg 1992Rosenberg , 1994aRosenberg , 1994bOrmerod 1994;Keen 2001;Ackerman 2002;Devine 2002;Ferber and Nelson 2003;Fullbrook 2004;Streeten 2004;Ackerman et al 2004;Lee and Keen 2004 -reflects the perception of many economists of a similar breakdown in our field. Zohar (1990) explores freedom and creativity in a new quantum psychology.…”

The Neoclassical Trojan Horse of Steady-State Economics

“…(Spencer, 2013) (Solow, 1997) (Stiglitz, 1997) (Perloff, 2015) (Mankiw, 2004) (Nicholson and Snyder, 2014) (Lee and Keen, 2004) (Keen, 2001) (Fullbrook, 2013;Hahnel, 2012;Milonakis and Fine, 2009) (Fullbrook, 2014) …”

Эволюция модели экономического человека в теории человеческого капитала: от homo economicus до homo transactus

“…Безусловно, разносторонняя критика данной модели на протяжении десятилетий позволила экономистам, социологам и философам представить многочисленные аргу-менты в пользу нереалистичности homo economicus, его искусственности и негатив-ного влияния данной модели на развитие экономической науки [17,22,19,21] ( ; Thompson, 1997;. Неоклассики же фактически не смогли предложить в ответ ничего более убедительного, чем аргумент М. Фридмана, согласно которому экономистам следовало бы не отвергать неподтверждаемые практикой допущения, а исходить из того, что эти допущения как будто бы верны: в частности, рассматривать фирмы и индивидов так, будто бы они являются, соответственно, субъ-ектами рынка совершенной конкуренции и эгоистичными максимизаторами полез-ности [16].…”