From its inception in the marginal revolution of the 1880s, neoclassical economics has depended on the notion of a rational economic agent, a Homo economicus. Equally, the notion of rationality has been the focus of criticism from those wishing to dispute one or another aspect of mainstream...

As the centenary of the Russian revolution of 1917 approaches, it is worth reviewing the past 100 years' discussion amongst economists on the possibility – or otherwise – of economic planning under socialism. The socialist calculation debate is of fundamental importance, not merely as a...

Adam Smith is revered as the father of modern economics. Analysis of his writings, however, reveals a profoundly medieval outlook. Smith is preoccupied with the need to preserve order in society. His scientific methodology emphasises reconciliation with the world we live in rather than...

Drawing on Marx's Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of the State, the paper suggests that Marx's methodological critique of Hegel's idealist procedure, of hypostatising abstractions and then reinterpreting the world as the realisation of those hypostases, is re-directed onto the state itself....

"Methodological individualism" (MI) was first used in English in a 1909 paper by Joseph Schumpeter. MI is often invoked as a fundamental description of the methodology both of neoclassical and Austrian economics, as well as of other approaches. However, the methodologies of those to whom the...

This paper is prompted by the concluding comments to a recent paper (Denis “Hypostatisation”), which suggests that the neoclassical use of the concept of equilibrium expresses a formal mode of thought. Heterodox tendencies from Marxian to Austrian and Post Keynesian economics, that paper...

In previous research, investigating economists’ conceptions of the relationship between micro-level self-seeking behaviour and the desirability of macro-level outcomes, I identified two rhetorical strategies of laissez-faire, characterised by reductionism, and by holism plus an invisible-hand...