Conclusion

Abstract

In the opening chapter it was suggested that economic heresy can be interpreted as deviant science. The literature on the sociology of science yielded a number of hypotheses concerning both resistance to unorthodox ideas and those occasions on which mainstream economists became more receptive to dissident arguments. Heretics might be opposed on grounds of scientific rigour, their arguments being seen as incoherent, unclear, or irrelevant to the tasks at hand. Considerations of professional pride might be involved, both in the cases of ‘trespassers’ from another scientific discipline and where untrained amateurs are involved. Intellectual conservatism may predispose the practitioners of Kuhnian ‘normal science’ to resist innovation, and to do so more vigorously the greater the depth and breadth of the challenge to existing orthodoxy. Finally, political motives might operate if new ideas were seen to threaten existing power structures and vested (especially class) interests.