Talk:Economics imperialism

Non-economic areas
Non-economic areas of life? This must be the work of a non-economist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.241.78.50 (talk) 10:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

STRONGLY agreed!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.99.58 (talk) 23:32, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That must be the work of an (neo-classical) economist - as this article surely is. - 124.191.144.209 (talk) 14:18, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Earlier Edit restored
The pre-25 April 2008 Edit of the article was restored (wiht slight editing to restore a link). The reason is that the 25 April Edit completely changed the subject of the article and usage of the article title, which is a valid usage attested at for example the top Google Scholar hit: Edward Lazear, "Economic Imperialism". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. February 2000, Vol. 115, No. 1, pp. 99-146

Another usage, to which the recent Edit was referring, is that at the above Google School hit #6 for the same term: David S. Landes, "Some Thoughts on the Nature of Economic Imperialism," The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Dec., 1961), pp. 496-512.

A suggestion wiuld be the other usage have a separate article & title (say "Economic imperialism (politics)"). --Thomasmeeks (talk) 21:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Another possbile title for the above alternative usage that would fit well with a usage of political economy is "Economic imperialism (political economy)". --Thomasmeeks (talk) 13:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

revisiting article name
"Economic imperialism" is definitely a term used within the social sciences to describe this phenomenon. I think it's an unfortunate term when put into a dictionary like this because it really confuses with the broader, more natural notion of imperialism of an economic nature. Fine suggests economics imperialism instead: “I prefer the term economics imperialism, as well as colonisation of the other social sciences, but not economic imperialism - favoured by the mainstream despite total neglect of the latter’s incidence in reality [...]. Note that Olson and Kähkönen (2000) reject the term imperialism on the grounds that no force is used in the cross-disciplinary expansion by economics. They prefer the equally revealing metaphor of economics as the metropolis, extending its influence to the suburban social sciences.” (Fine, note 1) I'm not sure if we should adopt that because a little bit of searching seems to indicate Fine's expression failing to take off.

My suggestion is we leave "Economic imperialism" to its more natural interpretation, and label this article "Economic imperialism (social science)". C RETOG 8(t/c) 20:28, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Again, thanks for the prompt. How about "Economic imperialism (economics)" as an alternative title of the article? It has the advantage of correctly suggesting the social science where "economic imperialism" occurs, whereas the reader expecting a broader, more natural usage  (in the language above) would again be disappointed [by "(social science)"]. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 21:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC) Bracketed clarifitation added. 11:50, 6 September 2008


 * Sorry I was slow in responding. I needed to mull over your suggestion versus mine. I still like mine better, but explaining why is tricky. That leads me to believe it's less a hard rational reasons, and more an individual matter of what switches each flips in our individual brains. I'll try to explain in any case.
 * (Social science) gets at the point that it's a cross-discipline phenomenon within social science, that it's economists and economic methods examining (for instance) intra-family relations. (Economics) makes it sound as if it's internal to the field of economics. (It's tricky that the expression seems to be used most by economists.)
 * Because "Economic" already appears, I suspect that it wouldn't add much to someone who's not already familiar with it.
 * Yeah, I can't do much better than that at explaining. I'm very open to being convinced. It doesn't seem like this discussion is attracting much input, but maybe someone else will chime in. Otherwise, Idunno, flip a coin? C RETOG 8(t/c) 18:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * One suspects that some Talk pages might improve drastically if others followed the above example.  Please excuse the following reference notation.
 * 1T. On the 1st * point above, alternatively stated,  the earlier geopolitical use of "economic imperialism" could also be characterized as "social science", obscuring what "{social science)" is supposed to clarify.
 * 2T. On the 2nd point, at least the seeming redundancy of "(economics)" alerts the reader that noun use may differ from adjective use (just Fine's point in the indented quote at the top).  --Thomasmeeks (talk) 20:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC) Minor typos fixed. Thomasmeeks (talk) 14:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've been dallying hoping someone else cared to contribute. Nobody did. So, let's go with "Economic imperialism (economics)". That frees up "Economic imperialism". I think that could still redirect that here, and put a disambiguation link at the top of this page. I'm trying to figure out the best place to point that, because I haven't found a clear-cut article. I'd probably redirect to Neocolonialism, plus include a simple link to imperialism. I hope you don't mind if I reserve the right to re-argue this if it ever turns out to matter more. C RETOG 8(t/c) 17:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I Have bolded "economic imperialism" at the end of the Lead of Neocolonialism per to make the  connectiom above more obvious. May any Disambih  be mercifully brief. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 19:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, the article is moved, and a disambiguation tag is at the top here. The unfortunate thing is that there's no really good article for the other meaning of "economic imperialism". What that means is that I'm not sure what to do with the economic imperialism which is now a redirect here. I think it should properly redirect to an article on the other meaning, but if it gets sent to Neocolonialism, there's no disambiguation link back to this article. Hm. O, hell, I'll just put a disambiguation link there, even if it looks funny. C RETOG 8(t/c) 12:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Few in the real world seem to use the term "economic imperialism" to discuss actual imperialism and colonialism. Economic imperialism should definitely be sent here. I really think the parentheses was unnecessary; the italicized note at the top of the page sufficed. II  | (t - c) 16:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I sent it to Neocolonialism. When I checked "what links here", the significant majority of article links were (in spite of being completely wrong) in regards to exploitative economic relationships. (, check the bottom of the list for "economic imperialism" links) That fits my gut feeling that almost nobody will be looking for or caring about our version of "economic imperialism". But I have no further evidence in that regard than my gut and those links. C RETOG 8(t/c) 17:40, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * OK. It would be nice if Fine's more precise word caught on, so we could title this more elegantly. I wouldn't mind titling it as "economics imperialism" even now. Ah well. II  | (t - c) 17:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Criticisms section
Wanted to stick this here so I didn't lose it...
 * Together, tradition- and command-run societies constitute the vast preponderance of all known, or inferred, social entities, but as I have tried to show, economics supplies no operational insight into their workings. - Robert L. Heilbroner, Putting economics in its place - Defining the Boundaries of Social Inquiry

Economics offers by far the best insight into the workings of tradition and command-run societies...
 * A travelling party of Potawatomis, for three days finding no game, were in great distress for want of food. On the third night, a chief, named Saugana, had a dream, wherein a person appearing to him showed him that they were suffering because they had set out without a sacrificial feast.  He had started on this important journey, the dreamer said, "as a white man would," without making any religious preparation.  Therefore the Great Spirit had punished them with scarcity. - Edward Tylor, Primitive culture

If I'm hungry then I'll go to Subway and sacrifice/destroy $5 in exchange for a sandwich. There's an obvious causality between loss/sacrifice and gain/profit. However, if somebody is an atheist then the causality between sacrificing to Great Spirits and finding game is nonobvious. Why do we give our taxes/sacrifices to intermediaries/congress? We do so because we think the causality is obvious when in reality it isn't. Sacrificing to "false" gods is simply a waste of limited resources. Markets produce abundance because each and every one of us is free to make our sacrifices to organizations that we as individuals perceive to have to the most obvious causality. --Xerographica (talk) 15:52, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Is this a derogatory term?
Is this a derogatory term, as with e.g. "linguistic imperialism"? If it's not used neutrally we should mention that. Equinox ◑ 19:39, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

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Bad page move
On 9 February 2017 someone moved this article from Economics imperialism to Economics empiricism, claiming “Though economics can be done "imperially", in this case we're talking about empiricism”. This is ridiculous—the concept has nothing to do with empiricism, which is the use of observation. The imperialism dealt with is in both theoretical and empirical contexts. I’m going to move the page back. Loraof (talk) 18:19, 29 November 2017 (UTC)