young assistant professor seeking to publish and gain tenure will be by her older “well-advised” mentors to write articles that apply only neoclassical analysis. Course content in the leading economics departments, dissertation advice, and the selection criteria for research grants further install the orthodox habitus and doxa in the minds of the young students who will become our future economists. Outside of academia, the corporate-funded think tanks, the Federal Reserve Bank in the U.S. and other central banks elsewhere, international agencies such as the IMF, World Bank, and OECD, the business press, and private financial firms also keep the neoclassical models and other elements of the economics habitus firmly entrenched by means of their employment practices, their ability to influence policy and the press, and their money that funds research, publication, grants, internships, and philanthropy. Kuhn’s (1962) distinction between ordinary science and a paradigm shift may apply here. By intimidating actual and potential purveyors of alternative paradigms, those with the greatest investments in the current paradigm use symbolic violence that effectively protects both the doxa and habitus from contradictory facts, or what Kuhn (1962) called If anomalies are anomalies. openly and objectively discussed and examined, a paradigm shift becomes more likely. V. The Dialectic, International Economics, and International Economic Activity So, we have presented evidence of the concentration of production in the hands of multinational firms, we have explained why mainstream international economics has not paid much heed to the growing dominance of multinational corporations in international economic activity, and we have argued that a materialist dialectic provides a framework that could enable international economists to more fruitfully understand the reality of their field. In this next-to-the-last section we take a look at some of the international economics issues that the materialist dialectic could shed useful light on.
young assistant professor seeking to publish and gain tenure will be “well-advised” by her older mentors to write articles that apply only neoclassical analysis. Course content in the leading economics departments, dissertation advice, and the selection criteria for research grants further install the orthodox habitus and doxa in the minds of the young students who will become our future economists. Outside of academia, the corporate-funded think tanks, the Federal Reserve Bank in the U.S. and other central banks elsewhere, international agencies such as the IMF, World Bank, and OECD, the business press, and private financial firms also keep the neoclassical models and other elements of the economics habitus firmly entrenched by means of their employment practices, their ability to influence policy and the press, and their money that funds research, publication, grants, internships, and philanthropy. Kuhn’s (1962) distinction between ordinary science and a paradigm shift may apply here. By intimidating actual and potential purveyors of alternative paradigms, those with the greatest investments in the current paradigm use symbolic violence that effectively protects both the doxa and habitus from contradictory facts, or what Kuhn (1962) called anomalies. If anomalies are openly and objectively discussed and examined, a paradigm shift becomes more likely. V. The Dialectic, International Economics, and International Economic Activity So, we have presented evidence of the concentration of production in the hands of multinational firms, we have explained why mainstream international economics has not paid much heed to the growing dominance of multinational corporations in international economic activity, and we have argued that a materialist dialectic provides a framework that could enable international economists to more fruitfully understand the reality of their field. In this next-to-the-last section we take a look at some of the international economics issues that the materialist dialectic could shed useful light on.