Following on Steve's Kates point number 4, I would like to call your 
attention to this small piece that we wrote in Cambridge, back in 
2001, as a public and open letter:

Opening Up Economics: A Proposal By Cambridge Students
The Cambridge 27  (University of Cambridge, UK)

As students at Cambridge University, we wish to encourage a debate on 
contemporary
economics. We set out below what we take to be characteristic of 
today's economics,
what we feel needs to be debated and why: As defined by its teaching 
and research
practices, we believe that economics is monopolised by a single approach to the
explanation and analysis of economic phenomena. At the heart of this 
approach lies a
commitment to formal modes of reasoning that must be employed for 
research to be
considered valid. The evidence for this is not hard to come by. The 
contents of the
discipline's major journals, of its faculties and its courses all 
point in this direction.

In our opinion, the general applicability of this formal approach to 
understanding
economic phenomenon is disputable. This is the debate that needs to take place.
When are these formal methods the best route to generating good 
explanations? What
makes these methods useful and consequently, what are their limitations? What
other methods could be used in economics? This debate needs to take 
place within
economics and between economists, rather than on the fringe of the 
subject or outside
of it all together.

In particular we propose the following:

1. That the foundations of the mainstream approach be openly debated. 
This requires
     that the bad criticisms be rejected just as firmly as the bad 
defences. Students,
     teachers and researchers need to know and acknowledge the strengths and
     weaknesses of the mainstream approach to economics.

2. That competing approaches to understanding economic phenomena be subjected
     to the same degree of critical debate. Where these approaches 
provide significant
     insights into economic life, they should be taught and their 
research encouraged
     within economics. At the moment this is not happening. Competing 
approaches
     have little role in economics as it stands simply because they 
do not conform to the
     mainstream's view of what constitutes economics. It should be 
clear that such a
     situation is self-enforcing.

This debate is important because in our view the status quo is 
harmful in at least four
respects. Firstly, it is harmful to students who are taught the 
'tools' of mainstream
economics without learning their domain of applicability. The source 
and evolution of
these ideas is ignored, as is the existence and status of competing 
theories. Secondly,
it disadvantages a society that ought to be benefiting from what 
economists can tell us
about the world. Economics is a social science with enormous 
potential for making a
difference through its impact on policy debates. In its present form 
its effectiveness in
this arena is limited by the uncritical application of mainstream 
methods. Thirdly,
progress towards a deeper understanding of many important aspects of 
economic life is
being held back. By restricting research done in economics to that based on one
approach only, the development of competing research programs is 
seriously hampered
or prevented altogether. Fourth and finally, in the current situation 
an economist who
does not do economics in the prescribed way finds it very difficult 
to get recognition for
her research.

The dominance of the mainstream approach creates a social convention 
in the profession
that only economic knowledge production that fits the mainstream 
approach can be good
research, and therefore other modes of economic knowledge are all too 
easily dismissed
as simply being poor, or as not being economics. Many economists 
therefore face a
choice between using what they consider inappropriate methods to 
answer economic
questions, or to adopt what they consider the best methods for the 
question at hand
knowing that their work is unlikely to receive a hearing from economists.

Let us conclude by emphasizing what we are certainly not proposing: 
we are not arguing
against the mainstream approach per se, but against the fact that its 
dominance is taken
for granted in the profession. We are not arguing against mainstream 
methods, but believe
in a pluralism of methods and approaches justified by debate. 
Pluralism as a default
implies that alternative economic work is not simply tolerated, but 
that the material and
social conditions for its flourishing are met, to the same extent as 
is currently the case for
mainstream economics. This is what we mean when we refer to an 
'opening up' of economics.

Leonidas Montes