Whither modern economics? Subjective semi-sociological observations

Abstract

The paper summarizes main recent sociological, epistemological, methodological and ideological trends in modern economics and tries to evaluate its current state and further perspectives. Special attention has been paid to a change in economists’ methodological ideal: economic science began with trying to become like physics but actually has become like medical statistics. The paper’s general conclusion is that what we are witnessing today in modern economics is simply an ordinary working state rather than a triumph or a crisis. However, that state is not very promising since the period of new large theoretical ideas seems to be over for economics, the new atheoretical tendency in it is becoming stronger and in the very near future, economics is most likely to become more and more interventionist.