Ideology

Abstract

Now and then one comes across the claim that, unlike, for example, physics, ‘economics is thoroughly permeated by ideology …’ (Ward 1979, p. viii). The exact import of this claim regarding the epistemological status of economics is not clear, since the noun ‘ideology’ is employed in a variety of senses. However, it should be stressed at once that, despite occasional criticisms (e.g. McCloskey 1983, p. 334), most economists long ago accepted Hume’s insistence that policy proposals cannot be deduced from descriptive statements alone (Klappholz 1964) and have therefore stressed the distinction between positive and normative economics. The claim discussed in this essay appears to be directed at both the positive, as well as the normative, parts of economics, but we shall be concerned mainly with its import for positive economics. In section I we interpret the claim that economics is ideological as the view that economic theories can be explained by the social position and attitudes of those who put them forward, that is, by the Sociology of Knowledge (discussed critically in Popper 1957, chs 23 and 24). In section II we consider the suggestion that ideology is pseudo-science. In section III we consider it as consisting of non-scientific views. Finally, in section IV, we draw on the preceding discussion to appraise the claim that economists’ policy proposals are ideological.