On 10/5/07, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 10/5/07, raghu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I meant that behaviorist criticisms can be (and are) "explained away" > > while preserving the selfish economic agent by introducing extra > > variables as needed, and therefore are as harmless to the neoclassical > > theory ... > > In the end, it's not battles on the level of ideology that are > important. Ptolemaic astronomy probably died because of the growing > European need for navigation and the like, along with the "scientific > revolution." Neoclassical economics will go away when there are > massive economic disasters and social upheavals. It actually did go > away in a big way during the 1930s. Alas, like a bad penny, it came > back.
It took more than the need for navigation; it took men like Galileo and Copernicus to overcome the Ptolemaic theory. Men who were prepared to ask radical questions (not puny ones like "maybe the earth is not *exactly* at the center of the universe"). What I have been trying to say is Alan Blinder and the behaviorists are no Copernicus. As for alternatives, there are many people who are asking radical questions even today (the InsideHigherEd article refers to the New School and Notre Dame as examples). They are being excluded from the debate because of the excessive focus on the minor issues raised by AB and co. -raghu.
