The Delusions of Economics the Misguided Certainties of a Hazardous Science - Rist, Gilbert (Zed Books, 2011)
About the Author; Introduction; 1 Economics between History and Anthropology; The trap of autonomous disciplines; Changing the optic; From reductionism to complexity; 2 A Failed Scientific Ambition; The triumph of mechanics; Thermodynamics and the irreversibility of time; The impotence of economic 'reason'; 3 Homo Oeconomicus: A Dangerous Phantom; The unlocatable individual; How to construct society?; The tautologies of methodological individualism; 4 Exchange; The right words for it; Prescription or proscription; Giving, receiving and giving back; Market exchange or inverted logic
Do the axioms of self-interest serve the interests of exchange partners?5 The Fairy Tale of Scarcity; The two faces of scarcity; The means of abundance; How to conquer violence in society?; The dual paradox; 6 Utility and Futility; Questions for Jeremy Bentham; How to define utility?; Reductionist assumptions; 7 Equilibrium; The Walrasian model; 8 The Growth Obsession; What economic 'science' has chosen to exclude; National accounting and the invention of GDP; The growth obligation and its consequences; 9 Growth Objection; Actually occurring 'degrowth'; Avoiding the economic trap
'Sustainable development' or another model?What about the well-being of the South?; 10 Economic 'Science' as Religion; From Émile Durkheim to Louis Dumont; Naturalist dogmas; The self-immunization of economic religion; 11 Towards a New Paradigm?; Heterodoxy as the solution?; The diversity of economic forms; The Newtonian impasse; Conclusion; A look back at the origins of the crisis; Polanyi is back; Changing everything so that it remains the same; The blindness of ordinary economics; Hopes of change?; Critique as the precondition of a new paradigm; Bibliography; Index; About Zed Books
The Delusions of Economics presents a radical critique of neoclassical economics. Rather than entering into existing debates between different orthodoxies, Gilbert Rist explores the circumstances that prevailed when economics was 'invented' and that helped to construct it as a science. Rist demonstrates how these presuppositions are either obsolete or just plain wrong, and that traditional economics is largely based on irrational convictions