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1. Post-Truth: An Alumni Economist's Perspective

Author:
Ben Fine
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
Drawing upon fifty years as an academic economist, this lecture to alumni of SOAS’s Department of Economics reflects upon the continual “post-truth” aspects of mainstream economics, ranging over its substantive, if shifting, content, its methodology, and its treatment of methodology and interdisciplinarity. It draws upon a wide range of theory, empirical analysis, policy and anecdote to highlight both the need for alternatives and the continuing, even increased, failure of the mainstream to engage with criticism and alternatives.
Topic:
Economics, Imperialism, Economic Theory, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. The Undead World of Mainstream Economics

Author:
Ben Fine
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
I first put forward the idea of zombieconomics in 2008, to reflect two fundamental aspects of mainstream economics in appealing to the metaphor with the monster genre. One is what I have termed one-dimensions economics; it is not just that it is one-dimensional but it collapses structured determinations of economy and society, and their meanings, into a number of single, simultaneous dimensions such as the interaction of supply and demand. The exact content of this parallel with the flat motives and movements of zombies is drawn out in section 2 alongside an account of how this condition came about. The second aspect in deployment of the zombie metaphor is the way in which mainstream economics has infected not only the study of the economy at the expense of other livelier and multi-faceted schools of thought (generally gathered under the term heterodox) but has also increasingly extended its influence over social science more generally, in what is termed economics imperialism. This monstrous extension from the economic to the social is covered in section 3. In section 4, I offer some observations on how zombieconomics has responded to the Global Financial Crisis, GFC, in ways that equally reflect the continuing momentum of the zombie genre.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Financial Crisis, and Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. From One-Dimensional man to One-Dimensional Economy and Economics

Author:
Ben Fine
Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
The evolution to dominance of neoclassical economics is reviewed in light of Marcuse’s One- Dimensional Man in the wake of the fiftieth anniversary of the classic’s first publication.
Topic:
Economics, Imperialism, Commodities, and Economic Theory
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. A Paradigm Shift thatNever Will Be?:Justin Lin’s New Structural Economics (pdf)

Author:
Ben Fine and Elisa Van Waeyenberge
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
This paper assesses the attempt by Justin Lin, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, to posit a new development paradigm through his New Structural Economics, NSE. Lin’s attempt to redefine development economics deserves scrutiny for at least two reasons. He launched his new framework from the platform that his position as Chief Economist at the Bank. Critical scrutiny of his propositions then allows for continued insights into the complex relationship between scholarship and policy at the Bank and further illuminates, more broadly, the role of the Bank across the spectrum of development economics, development studies and development policy. Second, Lin’s framework claims a return to a “structural” understanding of development, with a strong industrial policy rhetoric emanating from it. This has been greeted with considerable enthusiasm by erstwhile critics of the Bank. Closer scrutiny of the NSE, however, both reveals the flawed nature of its core theoretical notion of comparative advantage and exposes its strong, if unfortunately conservative, commitment to a flawed and incoherently applied neoclassical economics. These issues are explored across Lin’s propositions regarding structural change, the role of the state and finance and are further examined in the context of specific policy interventions that Lin attaches to the NSE.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Industrial Policy, World Bank, and Economic structure
Political Geography:
Global Focus