Economics and Interdisciplinarity: One Step Forward, N Steps Back?

Abstract

Mainstream economics has become more interdisciplinary. Why is this? Does it represent a break with its intra-disciplinary character? How does it relate to major points of criticism – the lack of realism and disregard for methodology and alternative schools and history of economic thought? What light does this shed on the nature of economics today? Answers are found by tracing “economics imperialism” through three phases, emphasising the “historical logic” of economics imperialism, how its initial confinement to market supply and demand created a logical framing of universal application. As a result, microeconomics (and econometrics) triumphed over other fields and methods to such an extent and with such an acceptability that its corresponding principles are now applied, however inconsistently, with those of other disciplines and fields through a process termed “suspension”.

Keywords

• economic alternatives
• epistemological decolonization
• interdisciplinarity
• mainstream economics
• political economy