Why has HET declined in influence? Thoughts from Ivan Moscati and Roy Weintraub

Roy Weintraub writes

Ivan Moscati wrote:

>As is probably familiar to the readers of this list, one of the main tenets of
>the HET-as-science-studies program is the belief that historians of economics
>could break away from economists and economic departments, and be welcomed by
>different scholarly communities such as those of historians, philosophers,
>political scientists, or sociologists.
>


My friend Ivan is only partially correct here. "Could break away" is not
the same as "should break away", and "be welcomed" is not the same as
"might be welcomed in some circumstances". My argument in "Economic
Science Wars" (current JHET) was historical/explanatory, not a normative
"follow me". The center of the discussion was the passage:

> /To the degree that the science wars had involved scientists' beliefs
> that science studies was hostile to mainstream science, just to that
> same degree are the economic science wars associated with economists'
> beliefs that heterodox economics is hostile to mainstream economic
> science. And as a consequence the history of economics, *as and to the
> extent* that it is associated with heterodoxy, is taken to be (as it
> is often meant to be) critical of if not hostile to mainstream economics./

The argument went on to suggest that in economics the war is over.
Economists are not interested in sharing their own resources with their
critics. Whether or not you think that this is a bad thing, it is the
case. As was said so much better a long time ago, "As ye sow, so shall
ye reap." Less starkly put, HET as heterodoxy has had an unintended
consequence.