| Abstract: |
In the context of ongoing criticisms of the lack of pluralism in economics,
the present article aims to discuss the development of ‘heterodox’ economics
since the 1970s. Following Lakatos’s concept of scientific research programs
(srp), and concentrating on the situation in Germany, the article will discuss
classifications of economics, and will specify the understanding of diversity
in the light of ‘axiomatic variations’ of the economic mainstream. This will
form the basis for the subsequent description of the development of heterodoxy
in Germany, with special reference to the founding of new universities and the
reform movements in the 1970s. It can be shown that the heterodox scene
flourished in this period, but that this pluralization remained fragmented and
short-lived; by the 1980s at the latest heterodoxy was again on its way to
marginalization. The history of heterodoxy in Germany thus presents itself as
an unequal ‘battle of the paradigms,’ and can only be told as the story of a
failure. |