| Abstract: |
The profession of economics does not fulfill its social function to provide
people a correct understanding of economic phenomena. In other words, the
institution of economics does not work properly. George Soros makes this
conclusion in his lectures at the Central European University (Soros, 2010).
He sponsored the creation of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
with the objective to change this situation in economics. However activities
of the INET are not oriented to change the institution of economics and most
of participants in its activities are mainstream economists. This short paper
summarizes my ideas in what way it is necessary to change the institution of
economics. First, in order to make the profession of economists socially
useful, it is necessary to reconsider the methodology and history of
economics. At present the former leads the profession in a wrong way and the
latter to a great extent justifies this wrong way. Secondly, it is necessary
to reform the institution of economics. I define the notion of institution in
the following way: an institution is a set of formal and informal rules, and
also beliefs, that stand behind these rules, that orient the behaviour of
members of a certain community. The rules of the institution of economics
relate to the community of university professors and students of economics.
These rules provide a framework for developing curricula and syllabi, as well
as for the organization of examinations. They define the procedures and
directions of economic research, and the criteria for publication of articles
in academic economic journals. These rules include formal and informal rules
of functioning of professional organizations of economists, such as the
American Economic Association. Beliefs that underlie the rules of functioning
of the community of academic economists are expressed in different answers to
such questions as: What does it mean to undertake economic research? What is
the purpose of economic research? What should economists study? How should
they carry out the study? In what form should the results of the study be
presented? What does it mean to teach economics? What kind of economics should
we teach? The answers to these questions, along with formal and informal rules
of behaviour based on the answers, together constitute the institutional
knowledge of professional economists. Candidates for admission to the
profession acquire most of this knowledge during the preparation and defense
of PhD dissertations that many do in the framework of post-graduate studies.
If someone becomes a member of the profession and does not have this
knowledge, or refuses to follow its instructions, then sooner or later she/he
will be rejected by the profession. To reform the profession of economists
means to reform the institution of economics, i.e. to change their rules and
beliefs. I think that the only way for economics to become a socially useful
science is the transformation of economics from a kind of applied mathematics
(mainstream economics) or social philosophy (heterodox economics) to something
similar to social anthropology with its ethnographic method justified in the
framework of the constructivist discursive methodology. The methodology that I
prone can be expressed very shortly in the following way. The social-economic
regularities result from the fact that people behave according to certain
socially-constructed rules, and these rules are explained, justified, and kept
in mind by telling themselves and others some stories. Taking this statement
into consideration, we must agree with the fact that for the identification of
social-economic regularities, we must explore and analyse these stories.
Modern economics does not study the discourses of economic actors and thereby
deprive itself of the ability to understand and predict economic phenomena.
The study of discourse is not a deviation from the academic standards which
are built into natural sciences, but rather an approximation to it, since
almost all social interactions are mediated by language. |