Routledge Handbook of Macroeconomic Methodology

4 From positivism to naturalism in macroeconomics

John Hart

DOI: 10.4324/9781315745992-6

Introduction

Back in the 1970s, positivism was widely regarded amongst heterodox economists as supporting mainstream economics. Amongst its well-known claims was that ‘positive economics is, or can be, an “objective” science, in precisely the same sense as any of the physical sciences’ (Friedman 1953, p. 4). Consequently, heterodox economists welcomed the criticisms directed against positivism, initially by Popper and later by Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend. Yet in the 21st century mainstream orthodoxy continues to dominate economics. For most economists today, ‘economics is a positive, value-free science with no place for value judgments of any kind’ ( ...