Finally: a multiperspectival textbook on economics
I spent regular time thinking about epistemological issues, i.e. how do we know what we know, and how is that process of knowledge production and validation, changing at the present juncture.
My view is that hierarchical ways of knowing (hierarchical knowledge tree, power pyramids, after having been replaced by decentralized modes (facetted databases, group negotiation based democracy), but are now moving to fully distributed modes.
Hence it is abnormal that textbooks only present one point of view, or presume to be able to fully summarize a variety of other viewpoints.
So, I’m particularly happy that the neoclassical economic consensus, that we know to be so far removed from reality, and so destructive in its effects, has been challenged by various economic traditions (check the heterodox economics or post-autistical economic trends in theory).
Three of those pluralist professors in economics, Arjo Klamer, Deirdre McCloskey, and Stephen Ziliak, have undertaken a groundbreaking new approach to teaching economics that is based on this realization that economics is a conversation between multiple perspectives, rather than a unified theory. Their new textbook, The Economic Conversation, is slated to be published in 2008, and is opening up to participation. They aim to supplement (or to replace?) the classic undergraduate introduction by Paul Samuelson.
