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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Claudius Gräbner-Radkowitsch (Department of Plural Economics, Europe University Flensburg, Germany; Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | This chapter examines the coexistence of scholarly and advocacy “registers” within the pluralism-in-economics (PiE) movement and argues that distinguishing between them is both philosophically defensible and strategically necessary. The movement combines academic debates on pluralism, methodology, and epistemology with activist efforts aimed at institutional reform in economics. This dual structure creates two central challenges. The first, termed structural entanglement, refers to the unavoidable intertwining of epistemic and normative arguments in a policy-relevant discipline where the same actors move between scholarly and political roles. The second, epistemic capture, occurs when the authority of scholarly discourse is used to legitimize conclusions whose warrant is primarily normative. Rejecting both positivist claims of value-free science and relativist attempts to collapse the fact-value distinction, the chapter defends a middle position inspired by Veblen, Myrdal, feminist standpoint theory, and perspectival realism. This approach acknowledges the inevitability of value-ladenness in inquiry while maintaining the possibility of evaluating claims according to epistemic standards. Building on this framework, the chapter proposes a “perspectival adequacy assessment” based on procedural openness to criticism and cross-perspectival comparison. Empirically, the chapter discusses examples of blurred scholarly and advocacy functions within and around the PiE movement. As a constructive response, it advocates “register transparency” and a division of labor between scholarly and advocacy functions. The chapter concludes that preserving a distinction between epistemic and normative warrant is essential for maintaining the analytical credibility and transformative potential of pluralist economics. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ico:wpaper:181 |
| By: | Giovanni Scarano |
| Abstract: | The paper advances novel interpretations of Marx’s original insights by situating them within the horizon of contemporary scientific approaches, notably dynamical systems theory and statistical physics. Marx’s dialectical method is a mode of analysis predicated on the insight that relations among parts cannot be adequately grasped in abstraction from the relation between the whole and its constituent elements – a defining feature of modern systemic approaches. This perspective renders it possible to reinterpret many of Marx’s key concepts as emergent properties of economic systems. The paper further contends that Marx conceived capitalist development as an intrinsically dynamic process that precludes the notion of equilibrium as a state of rest. In this light, the centrality of disequilibrium within the Marxian framework brings it into an alignment with contemporary theories of deterministic chaos, wherein systems persistently far from equilibrium are nonetheless amenable to rational analysis through the concept of attractors. |
| Keywords: | Complex systems, holism, reductionism, structuralism, disequilibrium |
| JEL: | A11 A12 B14 B40 B41 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0292 |
| By: | Bokes, Jakub |
| JEL: | B14 B24 P2 P3 |
| Date: | 2024–07–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:123678 |
| By: | Sebastian Edwards |
| Abstract: | In this paper I examine Chile’s 1972 initiative to draft a new constitution under President Salvador Allende. I analyze the political and economic circumstances that gave rise to the project and the institutional mechanisms through which the draft sought to advance a socialist economic and political program centered on state ownership of means of production and central planning. I compare the Chilean proposal with the socialist constitutions of the German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia. The draft, which was never submitted to a plebiscite, as Allende envisioned, subsequently disappeared and remained unavailable for nearly two decades. Remarkably, the proposal has attracted very limited scholarly attention. |
| JEL: | K10 K16 K19 N46 P37 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35200 |
| By: | Tomasz Kopczewski (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents and formalises the Know Thyself method, a teaching approach developed through more than thirty years of university teaching practice. Its starting diagnosis is that students often learn economic models without experiencing the assumptions that make those models necessary. The method reverses the usual sequence: experience before theory, data as a mirror before abstraction, and questions before answers. Its empirical core is not the experiment narrowly understood, but ad hoc research: classroom experiments, surveys, simulations, valuation tasks, and replication laboratories that make learners’ own assumptions visible. Four case studies — expected value, ergodicity, market equilibrium, and the rationality of altruism — illustrate how the method converts declarative knowledge into reflective practice. Artificial intelligence gives the method scale by lowering the cost of surveys, dashboards, simulations, and replication protocols. The paper’s practical conclusion is simple: change the order. Ask first. Teach later. |
| Keywords: | economics education, epistemic provocation, experiential learning, replication, expected value, ergodicity, market equilibrium, AI in education, science curiosity |
| JEL: | A22 B41 C92 D81 D83 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2026-14 |
| By: | Warner, Neil |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the origins of neoliberalism in Western Europe from a new perspective, by highlighting and explaining the rejection of a family of alternatives to neoliberalism in the 1970s and early 1980s. These policies for the ‘socialisation of investment’ made diagnoses that were similar to neoliberal diagnoses, particularly emphasising the tension between policies that challenged the interests of capital and reliance on that capital for investment. However, whereas neoliberal policies answered this problem by facilitating the interests of capital, these alternatives sought to extend state and workers’ control over investment. Focusing on cases in the United Kingdom and Sweden, the paper explains why Socialist parties in these countries discussed but ultimately rejected socialisation of investment as a basis for their economic strategies. Comparing the processes of rejection in these cases, and comparing them to policies that these parties did implement, it argues that these proposals were rejected because of asymmetries in resonance and mobilisation on the question. Owners and managers of capital mobilised strongly against socialisation. By contrast, most Socialist politicians, voters, and union members saw control over investment as abstract and distant from their everyday priorities, and did not provide the support needed to counteract resistance. |
| Keywords: | neoliberalism; socialisation of investment; socialist parties; policy resonance; 1970s |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2026–05–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138150 |
| By: | Ignacio Andrés Rossi (CIC-CEHEAL-UNGS) |
| Abstract: | El objetivo del artículo es analizar la hiperinflación argentina de 1989 a partir de un enfoque e interpretación histórica. El punto de partida lo constituyen los factores estructurales detrás de la crisis la década de 1980 como la deuda externa, el alto déficit fiscal y la inflación reteniendo la coyuntura inmediata del Plan de estabilización Primavera. A partir del abordaje de un conjunto de fuentes estadísticas, institucionales y testimoniales se propone una interpretación sobre el episodio hiperinflacionario desde el manejo de la política económica del gobierno entre 1986 y 1988 como condición previa. Como se dio cuenta, la hiperinflación no puede entenderse meramente desde el desborde fiscal y monetario, sino que debe partirse de un enfoque que jerarquice el peso del endeudamiento externo e interno y las limitaciones de la política financiera tanto del gobierno como la ejercida desde el Banco Central. |
| Keywords: | hiperinflación, deuda externa, Banco Central, estabilización |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:396 |
| By: | Anibal Jáuregui (Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas. Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política (IIEP UBA–CONICET). Buenos Aires, Argentina.); Roberto Dante Flores (Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas. Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política (IIEP UBA–CONICET). Buenos Aires, Argentina.) |
| Abstract: | La crisis política y económica de 1962-63 desestabilizó al país, marcada por una profunda fractura militar, violencia reaccionaria y una macro en recesión inflacionaria. Ante la urgencia de una salida institucional, el gobierno impulsó una salida electoral sin reglas claras. Con vistas a esta se formó el Frente Nacional y Popular que integraba al peronismo con la UCRI de Arturo Frondizi. Finalmente Perón decidió el retiro de esta coalición de los comicios de 1963 y facilitó el triunfo de Arturo Illia (UCRP). De esta manera se frustró el retorno del peronismo a la vida política. La UCRI se dividió y el frondizismo ya definido como desarrollismo se reorganizó en abierta oposición al gobierno radical, al que consideraba un obstáculo para el desarrollo nacional. En noviembre de 1964 se fundó el Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo (MID) que consolidó dentro del desarrollismo la preeminencia del sector frigerista y su enfoque técnico-económico sobre el relato partidario tradicional. Pese a su llegada al establishment, este partido no alcanzó suficiente arraigo popular. La crisis política iniciada en 1962 no se había resuelto ya que los militares seguían dominando la vida institucional; ello culminó en 1966 con un golpe militar, que Frondizi y el MID no contaron con la condena de Frondizi y el MID. |
| Keywords: | Instituciones políticas; Fuerzas Armadas; Partido Político; Radicalismo Intransigente; Desarrollo económico y social |
| JEL: | N16 P16 H30 Z18 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ake:iiepdt:2026-121 |