Has Economics Lost Its Way?

Testo disponibile solo in lingua inglese.
In this article, the author seeks to pinpoint the reasons why modern economics has lost its way and the remedies that can be applied. The first section outlines the rudiments of the explanatory vision that has informed economics since the time of Adam Smith. The second section identifies the sources of the "wrong turnings" of neoclassical economics itself. The third section briefly outlines the side-tracking of economics during the Keynesian era. The fourth section examines both the causes and consequences of the "scientification" of economics over the last half century. Section five, finally, offers suggestions on how economics might be restored – at least partly – to the position it attained in the era of classical political economy two centuries ago. The author concludes by outlining the tremendous productivity of economics in forestalling the destruction of potential value in the "black holes" of politicised constraints on voluntary exchange.