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From Economics Imperialism to Freakonomics From Economics Imperialism to Freakonomics Is or has economics ever been the imperial social science? Could or should it ever be so? These are the central concerns of this book. It involves a critical reflection on the process of how economics became the way it is, characterised by a narrow and intolerant orthodoxy, that has, nonetheless, increasingly directed its attention to appropriating the subject matter of other social sciences through the process termed ‘economics imperi- alism’. In short, the book addresses the shifting boundaries between economics and the other social sciences as seen from the confines of the dismal science, with some reflection on the responses to the economic imperialists by other disciplines. Significantly, an old economics imperialism is identified of the ‘as if’ market style, most closely associated with Gary Becker, the public choice theory of James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, and cliometrics. But this has given way to a more ‘revolutionary’ form of economics imperialism based on the information-theoretic economics of George Akerlof and Joseph Stiglitz, and the new institutional economics of Ronald Coase, Oliver Williamson and Douglass North. Embracing one ‘new’ field after another, eco- nomics imperialism reaches its most extreme version in the form of ‘freakonomics’, the economic theory of everything on the basis of the shallowest principles. By way of contrast and as a guiding critical thread, a thorough review is offered of the appropriate principles underpinning political economy and its relationship to social science, and how these have been and continue to be deployed. The case is made for political economy with an interdisciplinary character, able to bridge the gap between economics and other social sciences, and draw upon and interrogate the nature of con- temporary capitalism. The book is intended for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of eco- nomics and other social sciences, researchers in political economy, scholars interested in interdisciplinarity and the history of economic thought, and other social scientists. Ben Fine is Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is the author of Social Capital Versus Social Theory (2001), The World of Consumption (2002), the co-editor of Development Policy in the 21st Century (2001), and co-author of From Political Economy to Economics (2009), all published by Routledge. Dimitris Milonakis is Associate Professor and Head of the Economics Department at the University of Crete. He is the co-author of From Political Economy to Economics (2009), published by Routledge. Economics as Social Theory Series edited by Tony Lawson University of Cambridge Social theory is experiencing something of a revival within economics. Critical analyses of the particular nature of the subject matter of social studies and of the types of method, categories and modes of explanation that can legitimately be endorsed for the scientific study of social objects are re-emerging. Economists are again addressing such issues as the relationship between agency and structure, between economy and the rest of society, and between the enquirer and the object of enquiry. There is a renewed interest in elaborating basic categories such as causation, competition, culture, discrimination, evolution, money, need, order, organisation, power probability, process, rationality, technology, time, truth, uncertainty, value etc. The objective for this series is to facilitate this revival further. In contemporary economics the label ‘theory’ has been appropriated by a group that confines itself to largely asocial, ahistorical, mathematical ‘modelling’. Economics as Social Theory thus reclaims the ‘Theory’ label, offering a platform for alternative rigorous, but broader and more critical conceptions of theorising. Other titles in this series include: Economics and Language Beyond Rhetoric and Realism in Edited by Willie Henderson Economics Thomas A. Boylan and Paschal F. Rationality, Institutions and O’Gorman Economic Methodology Edited by Uskali Mäki, Bo Gustafsson, Feminism, Objectivity and and Christian Knudsen Economics Julie A. Nelson New Directions in Economic Methodology Economic Evolution Edited by Roger Backhouse Jack J. Vromen Who Pays for the Kids? Economics and Reality Nancy Folbre Tony Lawson Rules and Choice in Economics The Market Viktor Vanberg John O’Neill Economics and Utopia The Philosophy of Keynes’ Geoff Hodgson Economics Probability, uncertainty and Critical Realism in Economics convention Edited by Steve Fleetwood Edited by Jochen Runde and Sohei The New Economic Criticism Mizuhara Edited by Martha Woodmansee and Postcolonialism Meets Economics Mark Osteeen Edited by Eiman O. Zein-Elabdin and What do Economists Know? S. Charusheela Edited by Robert F. Garnett, Jr. The Evolution of Institutional Postmodernism, Economics and Economics Knowledge Agency, structure and Darwinism in Edited by Stephen Cullenberg, Jack American institutionalism Amariglio and David F. Ruccio Geoffrey M. Hodgson The Values of Economics Transforming Economics An Aristotelian perspective Perspectives on the Critical Realist Irene van Staveren Project Edited by Paul Lewis How Economics Forgot History The problem of historical specificity in New Departures in Marxian Theory social science Edited by Stephen A. Resnick and Geoffrey M. Hodgson Richard D. Wolff Intersubjectivity in Economics Markets, Deliberation and Agents and structures Environmental Value Edward Fullbrook John O’Neill The World of Consumption, 2nd Speaking of Economics Edition How to get in the conversation The material and cultural revisited Arjo Klamer Ben Fine From Political Economy to Reorienting Economics Economics Tony Lawson Method, the social and the historical in the evolution of economic theory Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine Economics From Economics Imperialism to Edited by Drucilla K. Barker and Freakonomics Edith Kuiper The shifting boundaries between The Crisis in Economics economics and other social sciences Edited by Edward Fullbrook Ben Fine and Dimitris Milonakis From Economics Imperialism to Freakonomics The shifting boundaries between economics and other social sciences Ben Fine and Dimitris Milonakis First published 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2009 Ben Fine and Dimitris Milonakis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-88028-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0-415-42324-4 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-415-42323-6 (pbk) ISBN10: 0-415-88028-5 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-42324-3 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-42323-6 (pbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-88028-9 (ebk) Contents Preface x 1 Introduction and overview 1 Preliminaries 1 From reductionism … 2 … To expansionism 5 General outline 8 2 The historical logic of economics imperialism 11 Introduction 11 Questions raised by economics imperialism 13 Bringing back in the ‘social’? 17 Concluding remarks 26 3 The economic approach: marginalism extended 29 Introduction 29 Becker and the pure, if rough,road to economics imperialism 32 Politics as public choice: Buchanan and Tullock 36 From the rational to the non-rational 42 Concluding remarks 51 4 New economics imperialism: the revolution portrayed 56 Introduction 56 The information-theoretic approach: from Akerlof to Stiglitz 58 Human capital, finance, development and space 66 Concluding remarks 74 viii Contents 5 From economics, through institutions, to society? 78 Introduction 78 New institutional economics … 79 … Versus new economic sociology 87 Concluding remarks 91 6 From social capital to freakonomics 94 Introduction 94 Economic history and social capital 96 From Coase theorem to Coasean worlds 99 Freakonomics – abnormal economics as normal 106 Concluding remarks 110 7 Economics confronts the social sciences: resistance or smooth progression? 115 Introduction 115 From Becker to Akerlof and beyond 116 Economics: bright light or dim science? 122 Concluding remarks 126 8 Whither economics? 130 Introduction 130 How economics got its spots 131 The why and how 136 Concluding remarks 147 9 Whither social science? 149 Introduction 149 Beyond neoliberalism and postmodernism: social science at a crossroads 149 Structure and agency in social theory 153 Concluding remarks 158 10 Whither political economy? 161 Introduction 161 Historical and social economics versus value theory? 162 Contents ix What is to be done? 165 Concluding remarks 172 References 176 Index 198 Preface As recounted in the preface to our earlier book, From Political Economy to Economics: Method, the social and the historical in the evolution of economic theory, that volume,
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