Rethinking the Market » Activities and Outputs (tag [book])

Book, False Prophets of Economics Imperialism

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 08:00:00 GMT

False Prophets of Economics Imperialism: The Limits of Mathematical Market Models

Jacket Blurb: 'This book studies the methodological revolution that has resulted in economists' mathematical market models being exported across the social sciences. The ensuing process of economics imperialism has struck fear into subject specialists worried that their disciplinary knowledge will subsequently count for less. Yet even though mathematical market models facilitate important abstract thought experiments, they are no substitute for carefully contextualized empirical investigations of real social phenomena. The two exist on completely different ontological planes, producing very different types of explanation.

In this deeply researched and wide-ranging intellectual history, Matthew Watson surveys the evolution of modern economics and its modelling methodology. With its origins in Jevons and Robbins and its culmination in Samuelson, Arrow and Debreu, he charts the escape from reality that has allowed economists' hypothetical models to speak to increasingly self-referential mathematical truths. These are shown to perform badly as social truths related to the world of directly lived experiences.

The book is a formidable analysis of the epistemic limitations of modern-day economics and marks a significant counter to its methodology's encroachment across the wider social sciences.'

Endorsements:

'The most thorough and persuasive account that exists of the origins of the cognitive authority of modern economics - and the sometimes rather tenuous claims on which that authority rests. A brilliant achievement that could really only have been written by Matthew Watson but which we can all learn from.' - Professor Colin Hay, Sciences Po, Paris

'False Prophets of Economics Imperialism is a tour de force! It challenges the economics orthodoxy with sharp interrogations, multidisciplinary insights and careful and robust analysis of the history of the dismal science and its dominance of our academic and policy worlds today. This authoritative book should be read by anyone interested in how mathematical modelling came to rule the roost in economic thinking and policymaking, and why this should not be the case.' - Professor Shirin Rai, SOAS, London

'In this brilliant book, Matthew Watson reveals how economics transformed itself into the imperialist discipline that it has become today. He charts how, as economists became increasingly preoccupied with mathematical rigour, the field changed from being a study of the real economy to 'a science of choice' ... This study demonstrates the ironic path through which economics had to make itself increasingly uneconomic in order to become the discipline that sought to treat every other field through the lens of the market.' - Professor Jacqueline Best, University of Ottawa, Ontario.

False Prophets of Economics Imperialism was included in the Alternative Summer Reading List for 2024, as compiled by the Diversifying and Decolonising Economics group.

Book, The Market

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 07:55:00 GMT

Published by Agenda Publishing and Columbia University Press, January 2018

Back Cover Blurb: "We have become accustomed to economists and politicians talking about 'market forces' as if they are immutable laws of the universe. But what exactly is 'the market'? Originally an abstract idea from economic theory - the locus of demand and supply - it has come to inform the way we speak about our relationship to the economic system as a whole. Matthew Watson unpacks the concept to ask what does it really mean to allow ourselves to submit to market forces. And does economic theory really provide insights into the market institutions that shape our everyday life? In tackling these questions, the book provides a major contribution to a deeper appreciation of the dominant economic language of our time, challenging the idea that we can simply defer to the 'logic of the market'."

Endorsements:

"A masterpiece of erudition and concision, Matthew Watson's new book lifts the lid on a concept whose ubiquity in public discourse is matched only by its slipperiness. With immense skill, Watson explores the ways in which the idea of 'the market' has developed within the field of economics and in so doing teases out the complex relationships between academic abstraction of the market concept and the prevalence of market ideology in politics. The result is a truly impressive book that should be regarded as a vital supplement to standard economics textbooks and essential reading for anyone interested in understanding whether there are alternatives to the 'iron cage' of the market." - Professor Ben Rosamond, University of Copenhagen

"Watson has provided a history of the economic ideas that form the basis of modern economics, brilliantly explaining where many of the economic laws and concepts central to the idea of the market originated ... there are very few texts on the market that are as good as this." - Dr Huw Macartney, University of Birmingham

Book, Uneconomic Economics and the Crisis of the Model World

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 07:40:00 GMT

Published by Palgrave Macmillan, February 2014

Back Cover Blurb: "Matthew Watson analyses the political response to imploding markets through the lens of the history of economic thought, asking 'what has gone wrong with economics?' against the backdrop of the global financial crisis. The most important historical trend, he suggests, is the development of an 'uneconomic economics', whereby attention is placed on explaining relationships in perfectly efficient blackboard markets rather than the much more chaotic institutions encountered in everyday economic interactions. Economists now routinely devise sophisticated abstract models which are theoretically rigorous but fail to capture the way everyday economic decisions are actually undertaken. Acknowledging the gap between the model world and the real world led many commentators to initially pronounce that the financial crisis was equally a crisis of economics. Watson shows, though, that the subsequent redefinition of the crisis as a problem of over-extended state spending has successfully rehabilitated the model world of orthodox economics opinion."

Endorsements:

"To control the forces shaping our economic future, we have first to understand those shaping our immediate past. Mainstream economics claims to do that, but as this important book shows, that claim is false. Matthew Watson has written an invaluable guide to the limits of orthodox economics thinking on the 2007/8 financial crisis. It is a guide that, if read widely, will help sustain an informed citizenry on both sides of the Atlantic. Ideas matter, and the ideas discussed here matter more than most." - Professor David Coates, Worrell Professor of Anglo-American Studies, Wake Forest University, US.

"Matthew Watson's elegant and trenchant analysis shines a fiercely critical and deeply scholarly light on the profound relationship between the practices of financial markets, the modes of thought typical of orthodox economics and post-crisis policy thinking. Written with admirable clarity and concision, it stands as one of the very best - and certainly one of the most important - books yet written on the global financial crisis." - Professor Ben Rosamond, Professor of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

SOAS Political Economy Seminar Series paper presentation

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 19:39:00 GMT

On January 9th 2025 I delivered a paper to the Political Economy Seminar Series in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. The paper was called, 'Intellectual Border Transgressions in a World of Economics Imperialism: The Epistemic Limits of Mathematical Market Models as Social Science Explanations'. More generally, I spoke about my new book, False Prophets of Economics Imperialism, concentrating in particular on the epistemic trespassing that is involved in treating non-market social relations as if they map neatly onto the terrain of mathematical market models.

Podcast Recording with Mark Pennington on False Prophets, King's College London

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 09:56:00 GMT

On November 28th 2024 I recorded a podcast for the Centre for the Study of Governance and Society at King's College London. The host, Professor Mark Pennington, interviewed me about my new book, False Prophets of Economics Imperialism. The wide-ranging conversation saw Mark ask me to reflect on my inspiration for writing the book, what I considered its most important contents to be, and its implications for political economy as a subject field.

The recording is available here: Podcast - False Prophets of Economics Imperialism: a discussion with Matthew Watson - Centre for the Study of Governance & Society.