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Some belated further comments, with respect to comments from Colander & 
Gunning 
 
1. The original question from Cullenberg related to 
 
"the origin, and development of, the rise to dominance in U.S. especially 
of neoclassical economics in graduate education". Gunning hypothesizes as 
to the reasons for its origins in the US. My difference relates to the 
significance of the school in the early part of the century - my reading 
indicates that (by contrast with England) neoclassical practitioners were 
not a major force until after World War II.  Others, longer in the tooth 
and more deeply versed in institutional history might want to offer an 
opinion on what still remains unclarified in the discussion. 
 
2. a propos Colander's propositions, it seems to me that: 
 
a. the post-WWII attachment to neoclassical economics is not synonymous 
with individual's political preferences or how they vote. The 
'Samuelson-Solow-Arrow' nexus is not liberal (nor any part of the 
political spectrum); it's depoliticised techniques. Samuelson's 1947 
Foundations is a classic elaboration of the neoclassical conceptual 
apparatus. Many economists appear to be happy to live in separate 
compartments; their views on politics can differ markedly from what they 
would prefer or are prepared to tolerate in the syllabus. 
 
b. neoclassical economics is not a useful analytical structure for the 
comprehension of 'market' economies.  The defence of market economies is 
a separate issue from the defence of neoclassical economics in the 
syllabus and as an appropriate 'research programme'. Schumpeter was 
offering this point decades ago, mostly notably in Capitalism Socialism 
and Democracy, and his credentials are impeccable.   
 
Why marginalise the Institutionalists? They were trying both to criticise 
and reform (and thus ultimately defend) the 'market economy' as they 
interpreted it. For example, Commons (Legal Foundations ...) thought he 
was dealing explicitly with property rights etc whereas the neoclassical 
tradition merely takes it all for granted.   
 
Superior treastments of 'the market mechanism' are now occurring outside 
economics, by default.  HES had a discussion about precisely this 
issue in the middle of 1998, discussing the Polanyi heritage, etc. 
 
In short, regardless of economists' politics and the considerable merits 
of the market-based economic system, we still have yet to get to the 
bottom of the attraction of neoclassical economics. Game theory has 
certainly taken off, not least because it combines more robust 
environmental assumptions with economists' attractions to methodological 
individualism, assumed self-interest, and instrumental rationality.  But 
game theory doesn't deliver the determinism that has made neoclassical 
economics so attractive (part of the reason why Nash symmetry has been so 
appealing to game theorists themselves). Determinism and its close 
relative, equilbrium, are still there in the interstices of the 
respectable discourse of economists. The attraction to neoclassical 
economics in the syllabus and as a research programme needs to be 
explained not by the political perspectives of economists nor by the 
merits of 'real world' market economies but by factors relating to its 
intrinsic substance. 
 
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