Modern Economics and Social Reality

“Everyone seeking approaches to economics that are more relevant to our age of crises, dislocations and deepening inequalities should read this book. It explores and extends the implications of Tony Lawson’s concept of economies as rooted in social relations and offers hope in seeing individuals as capable of caring, trust and co-operation.”

Diane Elson, Emeritus Professor, University of Essex.

“Deploying the critical realist approach to social ontology as foundation, this collection offers original reflections on social positioning, critical ethical naturalism and feminist economics, alongside critique of mainstream economics and friendly engagement with heterodoxy and history of thought. As such it is a magnificently fitting acknowledgement of Tony Lawson’s continuing intellectual legacy – compulsive, compulsory reading.”

Ben Fine, Emeritus Professor, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

“Published exactly 30 years after his seminal Economics and Reality (1997), this collection is a fitting tribute to Tony Lawson and the many contributions he has made over a long and enormously productive career. The chapters - almost all by economists, social theorists, and legal scholars affiliated with the Cambridge Social Ontology Group he continues to lead - explore the principal themes that have defined his work: economic methodology, the history of economic ideas and alternative schools of thought, ethical naturalism, social ontology, and especially social positioning theory. What is striking about these contributions is that they are so clearly part of a living conversation, and thereby as much a contribution to as a celebration of various facets of Lawson’s wide-ranging and influential intellectual programme.”

Jochen Runde, Professor of Economics and Organisation, University of Cambridge.

“For decades, Tony Lawson has challenged mainstream economics’ notoriously complacent attitude to its philosophical and methodological foundations and its tenuous relation to real world economic processes. He has built up not only an alternative realist philosophy and social theory, but a community of researchers committed to building a soundly grounded understanding of economic reality. Here some of those scholars come together to honour this achievement and further the project through critiques and extensions of his work.”

Andrew Sayer, Emeritus Professor of Social Theory and Political Economy, Lancaster University.

“The play of curiosity and sustained critical reasoning - this book celebrates and interrogates their combination and embodiment in Tony Lawson's exemplary scholarship, from the critique of mathematical modelling, through the development of social positioning theory, to his advocacy of critical ethical naturalism.”

Hugh Willmott, Professor of Management, City University London.