Postmodernism and economics

Sheila C. Dow

pp. 148-161

in: Joe Doherty, Elspeth Graham, Mo Malek (eds), Postmodernism and the social sciences, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1992

Abstract

Postmodernism has not been well-articulated as such in the field of economics. Nevertheless, there has been a series of developments in economics which may be better understood with reference to postmodernism as it has been articulated in other contexts. Indeed, since there is a disparateness about these developments, the possibility of identifying a positive unifying theme is an attractive one. At present, the unifying theme is a rejection of modernist and, as we shall see, late-modernist economics. But reinterpreting this rejection in the form of the embracing of postmodernism may help us understand better what it is envisaged will be put in the place of modernism, or late-modernism.