Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper starts with an evaluation of three common arguments against pluralism in economics: (1) the claim that economics is already pluralist, (2) the argument that if there was the need for greater plurality, it would emerge on its own, and (3) the assertion that pluralism means ‘anything goes’ and is, thus, unscientific. Pluralist responses to all three arguments are summarized. The third argument is shown to relate to a greater challenge for pluralism: an epistemological trade-off between diversity and consensus that suggests moving from a discussion about ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ towards a discussion about the adequate degree of plurality. The paper shows how the trade-off originates from two main challenges: the need to derive adequate quality criteria for a pluralist economics, and the necessity to propose strategies that facilitate the communication across different research programs. It concludes with some strategies to meet these challenges.
Highlights
The call for pluralism in economics has gained a large number of supporters in the past couple of years (e.g. Dow 2004; Sent 2006; Dobusch and Kapeller 2009; Gräbner 2017), yet it remains contested for various reasons (e.g. Hodgson 2017; Becker 2017; for a discussion of reasons see Flechtner 2018)
While a majority of the literature on pluralism in economics has been concerned with a justification of pluralism, the direct engagement with criticism has not been of primary importance so far and is, the main focus of this paper
It was shown that the arguments targeted to the movement are either unconvincing (A2: pluralism would emerge on its own, A5: pluralism is left-wing ideology) or not precise enough to assess their validity (A1: the discipline is already pluralist)
Summary
The call for pluralism in economics has gained a large number of supporters in the past couple of years (e.g. Dow 2004; Sent 2006; Dobusch and Kapeller 2009; Gräbner 2017), yet it remains contested for various reasons (e.g. Hodgson 2017; Becker 2017; for a discussion of reasons see Flechtner 2018). We contribute to the debate about pluralism by discussing five prominent and frequently articulated arguments against the plea for pluralism. While we argue that the critiques posed against the movement are less convincing, we do find that the arguments challenging pluralism as a concept do contain viable contributions that have to be dealt with by pluralists. They must advance answers to the questions of (1) how communication among different schools of thought can be effectively realized, and (2) whether and how a quality assessment within a pluralist economics community can be ensured
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