Economics as Social Science
Economics Imperialism and the Challenge of Interdisciplinarity
By Roberto Marchionatti, Mario Cedrini
© 2017 – Routledge
224 pages
There is a growing consensus in social sciences 
that there is a need for interdisciplinary research on the complexity of human behavior. At an age of crisis for both the economy and economic theory, economics is called upon to fruitfully cooperate with contiguous social disciplines. The term ‘economics imperialism’ refers to the expansion of economics to territories that lie outside the traditional domain of the discipline. Its critics argue that in starting with the assumption of maximizing behaviour, economics excludes the nuances of rival disciplines and has problems in interpreting real-world phenomena.
This book focuses on a territory that persists to be largely intractable using the postulates of economics: that of primitive societies. In retracing the origins of economics imperialism back to the birth of the discipline, this volume argues that it offers a reductionist interpretation that is poor in interpretative power. By engaging with the neglected traditions of sociological and anthropological studies, the analysis offers suggestions for a more democratic cooperation between the social sciences.
Economics as Social Science is of great interest to those who study history of economic thought, political economy and history of economic anthropology, as well as history of social sciences and economic methodology.
Table of contents
INTRODUCTION
PART I
AT THE ROOTS OF ECONOMICS IMPERIALISM. CLASSICAL AND NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS AND THE ISSUE OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETIES
1 The distant origins of economics imperialism. Classical economists and primitive societies
2 Economics imperialism revealed. Neoclassical economists and the primitive man
3 Primitive society in the interpretation of classical and neoclassical economics: a common model
PART II
ECONOMICS AND THE CHALLENGE OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETIES: ANTHROPOLOGICAL NON-FORMALIST APPROACHES
4 The primitive system of gift-exchange discovered: Marcel Mauss’s Essai sur le don
5 The substantivist perspective on the role of the economy in societies: Karl Polanyi’s and Marshall Sahlins’s contributions
6 The intelligibility of primitive economic organization: Sahlins, Lévi-Strauss and Clastres on Mauss’s political philosophy
PART III
THE PROBLEM OF THE ‘OTHER’: ECONOMICS AND UNSELFISH BEHAVIOR
7 Economics on altruism, giving and reciprocity
8 A unified framework for behavioral sciences? On Herbert Gintis’s proposal
PART IV
THE THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL RELEVANCE OF MAUSS’S GIFT TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NON-IMPERIALIST ECONOMICS
9 The gift in social sciences
10 Mauss’s research programme revisited: the Mouvement anti-utilitariste dans les sciences sociales (M.A.U.S.S.)
11 A new Maussian perspective in economics
CONCLUSIONS
Roberto Marchionatti is Professor of Economics at the University of Torino, Italy, where he teaches economics, history of economic theory and economic anthropology.
Mario Aldo Cedrini is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Turin, Italy, where he teaches macroeconomics, international economics, history of economic thought and economic anthropology.
Mario Cedrini