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Heterodoxy, positivism and economism. On the futility of overcoming neoliberalism on positive grounds Ulrich Thielemann* [Berlin, Germany]
Copyright: Ulrich Thielemann, 2020
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Abstract Though with a delay of almost one decade, the prevalence of the unitary paradigm of neoliberal-neoclassical economics, which just seemed to have been called into question after the great financial crisis of 2007, is challenged today more severe and from diverse sites. The number of heterodox voices and dissenters is rising. However, there is a mainstream of this heterodoxy, and this heterodox mainstream considers itself as the truly positive economics, operating, at long last, “free of ideology” (Stiglitz, Peukert, Rochon/Rossi), i.e., value free and “neutral”, striving to overcome the unitary paradigm and its ideology by an “empirical turn” (Naidu/Rodrik/Zucman). The overall thrust of orthodox economics, obfuscated by declarations of its own valuefreedom, is and has ever been to render the market principle as the true principle of practical (ethical) reason, i.e., of rightness as such, which is the meaning of economism. This is the prerequisite of the orthodox desire to offer an ethical justification for the economization of the world and our lives in all respects. Any deviation is called “irrational”. A merely empirical oriented heterodoxy, if it is to be called heterodox economics at all, is not capable of refuting this normative validity claim, and, thus, overcoming orthodox economics – though the strong impression is that it wants just that. In spotting its sole difference to orthodoxy in empirical matters, positivist heterodoxy, at best, comes down to the paradigm of market failure, which is ambiguous in its political implications and which, when construed with the highest degree of inner consistency, results in continuing and even strengthening the project of economizing all life matters. Also, a positivistically constricted heterodoxy fails to recognize that any purely positively oriented social science is in fact a variant of economism, be it in the form of a general instrumental science, transforming science into a business, or in the form of the paradigm of counterproductivity, demonstrating “empirically” that the refusal to market obedience is always in vain and detrimental to those who try. For overcoming economism and market fundamentalism, an ethical turn is needed. Contents 1. The status of normativity and its dependence on categorically different cognitive interests 150 1.1 Positive economics 152 1.2 Market affirmative economics 153 1.3 Market critical economics 154 2. Heterodox economics as the true positivism? ............................................................................. 154 3. Neoclassical economics as market ideology ............................................................................... 158 3.1 The defense of homo economicus violates the moral principle 159 3.2 The concealment of the losers in the process of “creative destruction” 161 3.3 The loss of freedom through the evolvement of “free” markets 163 *
PD Dr. Ulrich Thielemann, MeM – Denkfabrik für Wirtschaftsethik, Berlin, Elaboration of the lecture “Heterodoxe Ökonomik jenseits von Ideologie und ethisch-normativer Ideologiekritik? Das ethischkritische Paradigma von Ökonomik” held on March 2, 2019, in the context of the conference in honor of Karl-Heinz Brodbeck with the title “Wissen und Nichtwissen der ökonomisierten Gesellschaft. Aufgaben der Politischen Ökonomie im 21. Jahrhundert”, Cusanus University, Bernkastel-Kues, Germany. The German version of the text will be published in Ötsch, Walter Otto, Steffestun, Theresia (Hg.): Wissen und Nichtwissen der ökonomisierten Gesellschaft. Beiträge zu einer neuen Politischen Ökonomie, Metropolis Marburg 2020 (Band 13 in der Reihe “Kritische Studien zu Markt und Gesellschaft”).
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