Chapter 1 provides philosophical foundations for the arguments of this book in discussing the issue of scientific objectivity in economics. It criticizes a closed science, “view from nowhere” conception of economics, and defends an open science, “view from somewhere” conception of economics as an objective science. The first conception is ascribed to current mainstream economics, is associated with its principle practices – reductionist modeling, formalization, limited interdisciplinarity, and value neutrality – and has as its foundation the abstract Homo economicus conception. Two problematic consequences of these practices are value blindness regarding the range and complexity of human values; fatalism regarding human behavior in employing a tenseless rather than tensed representation of time. In contrast, the principle practices of an open science, “view from somewhere” conception of economics as a science – complexity modeling, mixed methods, strong relationships to other disciplines, and value diversity – provide the foundations of a socially and historically embedded individual conception. The chapter closes with discussion of the question: Might mainstream economics be a science bubble?

Chapter 2 introduces identity analysis and uses it to examine whether the Homo economicus conception can identify real-world individuals. It describes the self-referential, circular character of that conception, and shows that the belief that Homo economicus identifies real-world individuals rests on a fallacious inference known as affirming the consequent. The chapter reviews how the identity concept came into economics by making a person’s individual identity their utility function. This is compared with how social identity theory understands individual identity, and economics and social identity’s view of representative agents is then distinguished. Sen’s multiple selves view of individual identity is contrasted with both in light of its ontological basis. Section 4 of the chapter critically evaluates rationality theory’s two independence axioms regarding preferences, the logical basis for saying choice is context-independent and for the unembedded Homo economicus individual conception. It argues neither can be defended and that not only must choice be seen to be context-dependent, but that individuals need to be seen as socially and historically embedded.

Constitutions - in a political sense - provide solutions to the age old problem of leadership changes and how majorities and minorities should interact. If political communities solve these problems the can better coordinate their efforts, which in turn will give them a competitive advantage (military, fiscal, economic, etc.) to other (less coordinated) political communities. This chapter looks into the political effects constitutions have, and how they try to calibrate these kind of balances. It also look into the possibilities of calculating or engineering (new) balances like this, for instance for divided societies and transitional democracies (constitutional engineering)

This chapter challenges the idea that there is a natural human condition of selfishness, as personified by the figure that has dominated economic theory for so long – ‘rational economic man’. It shows how the calculations and trade-offs that this sort of thinking promotes jar with our socially produced instincts and are entirely inappropriate morally. It presents evidence that refutes any such easy correspondence between this abstract Homo economicus and our actual motivations and behaviours.

It then looks back at our history to show that it has been moral narratives about who we are and want to be that have driven past transformational change. It uses the examples of the post-war welfare state and the revolution in local government in many of Britain’s major provincial cities during the period 1870–1900 (termed ‘gas and water socialism’ by its detractors) to illustrate this. In each case change was effected because the power elite was, firstly, persuaded of the moral case for action and, secondly, formulated the practical means to resource the major changes envisaged. It draws contemporary parallels with voices highlighting the dangers of escalating inequality and calling for a radical reset of corporate capitalism while questioning our favouring of growth over well-being.

Chapter 4 explores how the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, a theatre and library built directly on the US-Canada border and opened in 1904, has become both an exceptional and exemplary civic institution in a time of increased securitisation. This chapter considers the Haskell as a local institution that promises to ameliorate geopolitical and geoeconomic antagonisms, but from a position within these realms rather than outside them. The Haskell’s civic promise is an is an effect of political economy and historical geography, and is the result of more than a century-long process of securitisation. Its civic appeal depends not so much on its equidistance from the state and the market but on a deeply embedded relationship with them. Seen this way, the Haskell becomes a distinctively theatrical – and distinctively social – technology of political economic governance: it localises social bonds that state-secured marketisation threatens to disperse and, in doing so, it retrieves social exchange from its wholesale appropriation by the state and the market.