Dear Mason,
indeed, with Fred Lee we have been discussing similar issues. In setting up the newsletter, we adopted the sociological definition that you 
may find in his heterodoxnews.com   website, i.e. we label as heterodox (and therefore we include in the NEP-HME) the work of those 
scholars who depart from what they themselves see as the majority view.
However, while I do think this definition allows us to provide a good service to a sufficiently large number of economists, from a theoretical 
point of view I always felt unsatisfied with the "community" definition of mainstream and/or heterodox. Not only because the two categories 
seem almost useless for the aim of developing a realistic description of contemporary economics, but especially because different schools 
hold different views of what is the majority (or "mainstream" or whatever): if the Sraffians would point their finger at models exhibiting an 
aggregate notion of capital, Post-Keynesians would criticize the lack of fundamental uncertainty and Feminists would reject models based on 
the homo economicus. 
Yet, I do personally think that there is something common in the dominant majority of papers published by contemporary economists (not 
only by "neocon academics" as you suggest), that ranges from the pre-analytical vision of the economy to the definition of what is 
acceptable method of enquiry. They would say that this commonality is the foundation of economics itself, though other economists deny 
this.
Being a relatively young and curious enough scholar, I'm very interested in knowing what other members of this list think.


Carlo D'Ippoliti



gio 17/02/11 03:07 , "mason gaffney" [log in to unmask] ha inviato:
> Re the posting by Carlo D'Ippoliti, calling neocon academics
> "mainstream" is conceding too much, I suggest. It is a bit like
> calling lumpenproletarians mainstream just because they are a majority.
> "Wingnuts" has been suggested, but that is too snide and
> undignified.  Has anyone a better idea?  I would welcome it, and so might
> many others like Bill Moyers who quoth "the delusional is no longer
> marginal".
> 
> 
> Mason Gaffney
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> 
> From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of carlo
> Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 2:40 PM
> 
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [SHOE] NEP list - RepEc
> 
> 
> 
> Dear all, 
> 
> 
> 
> with Fred Lee at UMKC we set up a weekly newsletter listing all the new
> working papers added to the database RepEc in the field of 
> "heterodox microeconomics" (loosely meant to include the
> feminist, institutionalist, marxist-radical, sraffian, and possibly many
> other 
> approaches that in some sense depart from the mainstream).
> 
> 
> 
> To subscribe, please go to      http://nep.repec.org/      and select NEP-HME. 
> 
> 
> For further information on how to make your research more visible through
> RepEc and how to signal us that you wish to be listed in the HME 
> newletter see the current issue of the Heterodox Newsletter at 
> 
> 
> 
> http://heterodoxnews.com/n/htn111.html#A_New_NEP_HME_Heterodox_
> Microe_597272691170359
> 
> 
> Best, 
> 
> 
> 
> Carlo D'Ippoliti
> 
> 
> 
> Department of Statistics,
> 
> Sapienza University of Rome
> 
> 
> 
> Viale Regina Elena 295/E, Palazzina G
> 
> 00167 Rome, Italy
> 
> 
> 
> tel:  (39)0649917037
> 
> skype:  carlodippoliti
> 
> http://w3.uniroma1.it/dippoliti
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

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