Economics Imperialism and Interdisciplinarity: Before the Watershed

Book excerpt: In Economics Imperialism and Interdisciplinarity: Before the Watershed, Ben Fine offers a selection of his key articles charting the rise of economics imperialism. Each article is accompanied by a preamble that sets the context in which it appeared, with an overall introduction drawing out the overall significance for contemporary scholarship. Ranging over mainstream and heterodox economics, the disputes between them, the relationship between economics and other disciplines, and thinkers as diverse as Kuhn, Becker and Bourdieu, the collection offers a unique and compelling account of how mainstream economics has both changed dramatically whilst its core and narrow principles have remained as sacrosanct as they are invalid. The volume is imperative for those engaging in political economy across the social sciences.