What changes must economics undergo, if it is to become a more adequate discipline, furthering of survival and flourishing? This essay argues that a break must be made from contemporary mainstream economics at the level of ontology (i.e., about the nature of reality). Drawing on neglected...

The conception of social reality I have previously defended (and here extend), positing features such as social relations, positions and powers, is thoroughly naturalistic and even consistent with modern interpretations of quantum field theory. It also serves to ground a social science that can...

The current crisis has triggered significant debate concerning economic theory and policy. Largely absent from this debate is an informed discussion of the methods used by economists in analysing the economy and formulating their proposals. But method matters. Here I argue that current academic...

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the workings of an explanatory method for applied economics. It is a method that is rarely explicitly examined or defended in the discipline, but which, I believe, has a lot of promise for the sorts of contexts that economists must address. My strategy...

Heterodoxy serves as an umbrella term to cover the coming together of separate projects or traditions. In answering the question, 'what distinguishes heterodoxy from the orthodoxy?', the author argues that matters of ontology are central. In answering the question, 'how are the various...

In his numerous methodological asides and assertions that feature in his more empirically-oriented, postwar contributions, Nicholas Kaldor makes frequent reference to notions of abstraction, tendencies, and stylized facts. However, the employment of such terms seems rarely to be explicitly...