WHO
About the author
The text on this website and the publications on it were written by Frans Doorman, a sociologist (PhD) by training, specialized in the rural sociology of developing countries. He has worked for more than 30 years in development cooperation, for various consultancy firms, institutes of higher education, the Dutch government, the World Bank, the European Commission, and different U.N. organizations.
Justification: sociologists and economics
Why does a sociologist write about economics? The answer is that economics is social science. It deals with a particular aspect of human behavior, economic decision making and its consequences. Social scientists, notably sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists, have developed theory, methods and tools that are highly relevant to analyze decision making and therefore, are highly relevant for economics.
Why social (and other ) scientists need to get involved
Because sociology and psychology have developed more adequate methodology for studying human decision making than economics, non-economic social scientists are in a better position to level a fundamental critique at economics than economists themselves. In part because of this faulty methodology economists have shown themselves to be unable to expose and analyze the fundamental shortcomings in their approach to examining reality. Much less have they, therefore, been able of giving their science the overhaul and rebuilding it so badly needs. And even though a sizeable minority does recognize that mainstream economics has serious deficiencies the critique usually remains limited to the dominance of neo-classical economics in both the academy and policy making, and the corresponding lack of attention for other economic paradigms. However, practically no economist is aware of the core problem of economics: that their efforts to model reality lead to a distorted and faulty representation of reality. As long as economists do not realize this the drive for change will have to come from non-economists.
