Economics Imperialism and Interdisciplinarity: Before the Watershed

Ben Fine, Ph.D. (1974), London School of Economics, is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and Visiting Professor at Wits School of Governance, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. His most recent books include Material Cultures of Financialisation, co-edited with Kate Bayliss and Mary Robertson (Routledge, 2018); Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State, co-edited with John Reynolds and Robert van Niekerk (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2019); and A Guide to the Systems of Provision Approach: Who Gets What, How and Why, with Kate Bayliss (Palgrave, 2021). His Marx’s ‘Capital’ (Pluto, 2016) is now in its sixth edition (with co-author Alfredo Saad Filho). He was founding Chair of the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (iippe.org) until June 2023.

Preface


1 Introduction and Overview

 1 The Personal Background


 2 The Revolution Displayed


 3 From Becker to Bourdieu via Kuhn and Coleman


 4 The Revolution Betrayed by Way of Concluding Remarks




2 The Historical Approach to Rent and Price Theory Reconsidered

  Postscript as Personal Preamble


 1 Introduction


 2 Adam Smith’s Theory of Rent


 3 Marginalist Rent Theory


 4 Compromise in Neoclassical Rent Theory


 5 Concluding Remarks




3 Landed Property and the Distinction between Royalty and Rent

  Personal Pre-amble


 1 Introduction


 2 The Historical Background


 3 The Theoretical Background


 4 The Debate


 5 Concluding Remarks




4 The New Revolution in Economics

  Personal Pre-amble


 1 polemic




5 From Bourdieu to Becker: Economics Confronts the Social Sciences

  Personal Preamble


 1 Introduction


 2 The Enigma and Fluidity of Capital


 3 Bourdieu’s Distinction of Social Capital


 4 From Bordieu to Coleman – With Intermediate Stops


 5 The Revolution Portrayed


 6 Concluding Remarks




6 Economics Imperialism as Kuhnian Revolution?

  Postscript as Personal Pre-amble


 1 Introduction


 2 Preliminaries


 3 Paradigm Lost or (Re)Gained?


 4 Paradigm Shift?


 5 Paradigm Lost, Regained or Reconstructed?


 6 Concluding Remarks




7 A Question of Economics: Is It Colonising the Social Sciences?

  Postscript as Personal Pre-amble


 1 Introduction


 2 Whither Economics?


 3 Economics and Economies


 4 Standard Theory


 5 Determinism


 6 Social Scientists: Beware Economists Bearing Gifts


 7 From Potential to Practice


 8 Concluding Remarks




Appendix


Index