Veblen’s evolutionary methodology and its implications for heterodox economics in the calculable future

Abstract

Critics have repeatedly claimed that heterodox economics has failed. They blame heterodox economists for their own failure. I subject this claim to critical examination from the perspective of Veblen’s evolutionary methodology. Veblen’s theory of the business enterprise will be used as an example, which exemplifies the case that a ‘blasphemous’ theory is ignored and marginalized even though it provides rich and perspicacious insights into the evolution of economy and society. It is also argued that social science does not follow the biological principle of natural selection and the survival of the fittest. What survives does not necessarily mean the fittest in the social realm. The history of science is replete with paradoxical incidents that an incoherent, irrelevant, or even wrong theory becomes dominant and widely accepted because it is one that serves the vested interests in academia and society. Economics is no exception.