Is economics a science?

Abstract

After more than a century of near-complete hegemony of the neoclassic paradigm in the academy, we take it for granted that economics, as it is nowadays practised, is a science in the same sense we believe other fields of scientific inquiries to be. Although many critiques and dissenting voices can and have been heard questioning various aspects of different theories and models, the overall scientificity of economics as such has mostly been left unquestioned. Economists still present themselves as experts, Nobel and various other prizes in economics are awarded, thousands of papers are published in “scientific journals”, and hundreds of thousands of students engage in their studies worldwide to become professional economists. All following a remarkably similar student plan and curriculum all around the world. However, in this paper, I go a step further and ask the question, not without hesitation due to the seriousness of the negative answer I propose to it, whether economics as it is practised nowadays by experts and presented to the public at large, can be considered a science at all. More than the question about whether we have good or bad economic science, it is the whole edifice and the way modern economics has come to be, which is, thus, being questioned.