I haven't read Fullbrook's work, but if this article is an accurate description, I'll pass. So many charges in this article that seem to be based on Fullbrook's misunderstanding of what the science of economics really is.
For example: "Double-bind situations where a person is socialized to act in a way that conflicts with neoclassical “rationality,” such as African-Americans expected to live in one part of town even when they don’t want to." This has nothing to do with economics, it is a matter of racist politics.
Another example: "Social being: a person may care about others so much that they don’t simply act as a free economic agent." Economics only explains what people do on average, and does not refute that people may act on impulses outside the economic models.
"Why do some people spend hundreds of dollars on shoes?" In economics this is explained by the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. Utility is the personal gain one gets from the purchase or ownership or usage of a good or service. It is not necessarily measured in monetary terms, in fact in economics we measure this concept in "utils". Most people will buy fewer shoes that are high priced and more shoes that are lower priced, and that is why we have a downward sloping demand curve. But some people get higher levels of utility from higher priced shoes, and that is not at all denied by neoclassical economics.
Economics as a science is an attempt to explain the behavior of people in a society. It measures all kinds of inputs and outputs, and attempts to explain why people behave the way they do, economically. But it does so ON AVERAGE, AT THE MARGIN, or for THE MAJORITY, not for every single case. Every economic model starts by stating the assumptions that will make the model work, and it is acknowledged that the assumptions are not always met, the model does not fit every case, and there may be many exceptions, both at an individual level and in societal groups.
For example, economics can predict with great accuracy that a Jewish man in Ames, Iowa will generally take much longer to find a bride than he would in, say, the Bronx. It is simply a matter of supply and demand. But economics does NOT say that he won't fall in love with a local non-Jewish woman and break the model.
A good economist will always make it clear that norms, values, or personal tastes can result in choices outside the bounds of the models. We cannot measure personal or societal norms. We can only measure the number of shoes bought at different prices, and explain why the number purchased drops when the price rises. Most common economic models are quite accurate, but they are not valid 100% of the time and don't try to be and don't claim to be. But people who want to say that economics is fantasy use the exceptions to disprove the rule. And Margaret Thatcher is a really bad example to explain Fullbrook's points. Thatcher did not have economics training, she was a chemist, and her only economics influence was Frederich Hayek, which taints her observations immediately.
Fullbrook's work, as presented in this article, is just as full of overworked and overblown assumptions as he charges for the economics profession. For example, take this sentence: "Rationality, efficiency, growth, and revealed preferences all function as bridges between an empirical vocabulary and a normative one, telling you how to live." That is not the way economics works. Economics is the empirical vocabulary. It is not normative at all, and does not tell people how to live, it merely explains how most people, on average, DO, in fact, live. Statements like this show a terrible misunderstanding about economics, including neoclassical models.
One problem with neoclassical economics today is that if you take any idea, system, standard, or tradition to an extreme, it moves from positive to destructive. That is why we get so many articles about how capitalism is destroying the world. In today's world, in the US and other countries, capitalism has been allowed to morph into extreme monopoly capitalism, where the free market has changed from meaning "competitive markets" to simply "the lack of government intervention". But negative externalities, monopoly pricing, deceptive advertising, preferential tax treatments, and many other aspects of today's capitalism are not inherent in capitalism, per se. They are matters of political will, the bastard children of greed, given life by corruption. Capitalism works very well for the vast majority of citizens in social democracies such as in Scandinavian countries. Under a solid and consistent set of controls, capitalism can work very well. Left to it's own devices, it can become a predatory monster. But, again, that is a matter of political will.
No, neoclassical economics does not "normalize bad policies", nor are its technical explanations designed to prevent people from disagreeing. It is not some plot to bamboozle the public. It is a science that tries to explain human behavior. It is not that much different from the hard sciences in its methods, except that it is mostly observational, with experiments being a rare exception. Hard sciences try to explain the workings of the natural world, the universe, and how THINGS work. Economics is plagued by having to explain the behavior of PEOPLE, and the amazing variance and distortions from human behavior and political differences makes it less precise. But to claim that it is phony or disingenuous is both ignorant and misleading.
