Reorienting Economics (Economics & Social Theory) [Paperback]

I must say that I was quite surprised to read Herbert Gintis's negative review of Tony Lawson's recent book Reorienting Economics (2003) on this website. Especially puzzling is Gintis's impression that the book is simply a rewrite of Lawson's earlier book Economics and Reality (1997) with no new material added. I simply cannot explain how Gintis could have missed so much I found in the book that is new. The only possible explanation is that he must have an edition different from my own; perhaps the one he bought in the US does not have the same content as the one I bought in the UK when the book first came out.

So let me tell the readers of this Amazon reaction line about all of the new material that was in my version of Lawson's book. Let's see: The new book extends Lawson's original ontological analysis (distinguishing among different forms of closed systems, as well as including a transcendental deduction of his conception of social reality) and an account of contrast explanation (tying it in with dialectical reasoning). The book covers such new ground as the role of metaphor in social theorizing, the nature and utility of evolutionary economics, the possibility of borrowing from Biology, the relevance to social theorizing of mimetics, the nature of economics itself, and whether it can qualify as a separate social science. It also provides a lucid account of the current heterodox traditions, careful to identify what constitutes them as heterodox and also what distinguishes them from each other. In that regard, I think that Lawson makes a reasonable attempt at resolving what has been perceived by some as incoherence within Post Keynesianism. Moreover, he indicates ways in which tensions within Feminist projects of epistemology and emancipation might be overcome. The latter analysis includes a novel interpretation and defense of feminist "standpoint theorizing" as well as a contribution assessing the nature of what he calls "sustainable emancipatory projects." Further, in addressing the project of (old) Institutionalism, Lawson makes, in my opinion, a major contribution to the interpretation of Thorstein Veblen. There were things there that I just had never realized before in my reading of Veblen. And further still, the book contains what I consider to be a very significant contribution to the history of formalistic economics (presented in the form of an illustration of Lawson's extremely important and novel model of evolutionary change elaborated in an earlier chapter). As far as I can tell, the coverage and exposition of these issues are entirely new to Reorienting Economics.

So let me warn those of you who plan to purchase Lawson's latest book (and I do encourage you to do so): make sure that you get the one that I did, and not the one purchased by Gintis. Mine has all the new stuff; he should ask for his money back!

Thousands of books have been written since the mid 20th century dedicated to exploring orthodox or mainstream economics. Little more than a handful of these books have reflected upon the philosophical and methodological underpinnings of economics. The result is not only that orthodox economics has marginalised heterodox alternatives and come to dominate economics departments in universities around the world, but also the impression has been created that discussion of philosophy and methodology is simply a wasteful distraction from `doing' economics.

Orthodox economics has not benefited from this splendid isolation: quite the opposite. The absence of serious criticism has allowed a body of economic theory to develop that has extremely weak predictive, explanatory and descriptive power. Indeed orthodox economics may well have become the 21st century equivalent of the flat earth theory - something, incidentally, that many (astute) non-economists have known for a long time.

Occasionally, however, books come along that are not afraid to say `the Emperor has no clothes.' Tony Lawson's Reorienting Economics (significantly advancing the ideas of Economics and Reality) says just this. Because iconoclastic books like this challenge deeply ingrained habits of thought, they instil some people with a sense of anxiety, and are often dismissed with a range of rhetorical devices - especially in book reviews where cheap, and often superficial, shots can be passed off as good coin. The author is accused, variously, of failing to understand the technicalities of the subject, misunderstanding theorist X, failing to discuss theory Y or approach Z and so on. This seems to be the unfortunate response of some of the reviewers of Lawsons' books. No doubt Lawson does not understand everything, or everyone, and he certainly does not discuss every theory, theorist, or approach: but then again, who does.

What makes Lawson's work stand out is that he introduces the issue of ontology to the subject matter of economics. Ontology is the study of being; of the fundamental structure or components of a domain of reality; of the general kinds of things that exist. Lawson's books are concerned to elaborate the basic structure of the socio-economic domain specifically. His purpose is to draw out the implications of ontological theorising for all other forms of social theorising, including economics.

This, however, is not how orthodox economists proceed. Instead, they start with a kind of `off the shelf' fixed set of (mathematical) tools and simply presume, quite unreflexively, that it will be everywhere appropriate to socio-economic analysis. Lawson's argument is as clear as it is bold: this particular tool box is mostly inappropriate for investigating the socio-economic world and is certainly not of universal validity. Researchers in economics, typically, end up with a set of tools that predict, explain, and describe little or nothing about the way real (as opposed to fictitious) socio-economic practices actually work.

In Reorienting Economics Lawson urges us not to follow orthodoxy. Instead, he encourages us to embrace ontological investigation, that is, to proceed by enquiring into the way socio-economic reality is. And here economists have much to learn from other disciplines outside of economics - Lawson, in fact, refers to his oeuvre as `social theory.' We should strive to include in our tool box all those techniques that have the potential for uncovering, illuminating and explaining socio-economic phenomena. Following the path sketched in Lawson's books does not mean that we merely describe reality, but it does mean that we have to take the process of abstraction very seriously. Indeed Lawson is careful to differentiate legitimate abstraction from the illegitimate process of making knowingly false assumptions for no other purpose than making possible the deduction of outcomes from initial conditions. There is, of course, no guarantee that following Lawson's suggestions will lead to a solid understanding of socio-economic practices - there is an awful lot of work to be done to get from ontology to theory and practice. Yet the orthodox route, proceeding as it does on the basis of knowingly fictitious theories and models of reality, seems as the outset, doomed to fail.

If you suspect that orthodox economics lacks predictive, explanatory, and descriptive power, if you are interested in why this might be the case, and if you are interested in joining those heterodox economists engaged in the search for a plausible alternative, then Reorienting Economics (and Economics and Reality) should be on your bookshelf.

Tony makes an important argument in this work, and one that bears repeating: that, put plainly, and in rank simplification, mainstream economics serves to mask (socio-economic) reality if only in its very ignorance of it. The best check to the pretensions of this pseudo-science is , therefore, Reality itself, perhaps even more than elaborate theoretical critiques. Radicals and socialists may well chafe at the simpliste nature of the Argument but nonetheless it is a powerful argument, even more potent for being quite irrefutable.

Now the Realist Argument is not the only Argument to make, nor is it the Last Argument of its genre, nor is it entirely an original argument in the history of the sciences, but it is of import in this neo-classical/neo-liberal world which takes it methodology (when aware of such things at all) from Friedman's notorious irrealist critique of yesteryear which blithely scoffed at realism as a non-issue. Whilst these hegemons may never read, or understand , Tony's book the knowledgeable few amongst even their ilk (and they do exist) will know that their metatheoretical hegemony is not quite complete. And , in this age of their triumphal Unilateralism, even such brand of minimalism may well be worthy of consideration.

I am not saying that Tony's work will feed the hungry, empower women, and/or save the rain-forest, which I would personally consider far more worthy as far as ideals go : but we are speaking here of economics as it lives in the Ivory Tower (more specifically , the Ivy League Tower) where argument and debate are the tools of the trade. In that rarefied world, Tony is about the only one making the Realist argument seriously and nobody, frankly, does it better. I would, therefore, unreservedly recommend his work to any one interested in a realist methodology for the sciences. His Cambridge Realist Seminar has attracted the attention of many scholars , even from the Mainstream: and his new book will carry that Conversation even further. I suspect that even those whose ire is easily aroused by the Realist use of the Oh-So-very-Un-Anglo-Saxonish terms like 'ontology' may yet, upon fair reflection, grant that philosophy and method are legitimate fields for debate, even in a discipline that portrays itself rather vainly (in a double sense!) as a natural science. The arena of theoretical struggles has, necessarily, many corners, cusps, and corridors and we would be rash to privilege some and scorn others.