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What is wrong with modern economics? The clear answer is that it is mostly simply irrelevant. It has been becoming increasingly so for about seventy to eighty years now. Its formulations, in the main, are patently and repeatedly unrealistic, and so able to provide little or no explanatory insight or understanding of the world in which we live. Human beings, in the formulations of modern economists, are regularly endowed with perfect foresight, rational expectations, omniscience, amazing powers of calculation or 'rationality', rendered homogeneous, placed in scenarios where just two commodities exist etc., etc. It is all really quite ludicrous if the goal is social illumination.

What is wrong with modern economics? The clear answer is that it is mostly simply irrelevant. It has been becoming increasingly so for about seventy to eighty years now. Its formulations, in the main, are patently and repeatedly unrealistic, and so able to provide little or no explanatory insight or understanding of the world in which we live. Human beings, in the formulations of modern economists, are regularly endowed with perfect foresight, rational expectations, omniscience, amazing powers of calculation or 'rationality', rendered homogeneous, placed in scenarios where just two commodities exist etc., etc. It is all really quite ludicrous if the goal is social illumination.

The question of the nature of money is pursued drawing on results generated in the field of social ontology as well as on observations from history. The conception of the nature of money found in this manner to be the most sustainable is compared to various other prominent, if usually held to be mutually incompatible, theories.

I take the opportunity to elaborate and clarify the positioning theory of money in response to the critique of it provided by Geoffrey Ingham.

Money is positioned bank debt. This is a thesis I have previously defended in this journal. In the current paper, I elaborate the thesis and provide further grounding for it, especially in the light of criticism by others. In so doing, I examine how positioned bank debt as money works and how, in one case at least, it originally emerged

What is this school called neoclassical economics? Does it exist? Should it? Where does the term 'neoclassical economics' come from, and is there any connection between any of the current interpretations of the term and its original meaning? How do we make sense of competing current interpretations? Is there a sustainable formulation? These and related questions are raised and answered in an attempt to bring clarity to ongoing economic discussion and debate, thereby to under-labour for a more relevant academic economics discipline.

The conception of social reality I have previously defended (and here extend), positing features such as social relations, positions and powers, is thoroughly naturalistic and even consistent with modern interpretations of quantum field theory. It also serves to ground a social science that can be scientific in the sense of natural science. This is the thesis defended here. Central to the argument is an emphasis on a 'strong' form of emergence and the category of 'organisation-in-process'. To bring out various salient features of the position defended, I take the opportunity to compare aspects of it with relevant components of the contribution of John Searle, whose ontological conception appears at once to be both very similar yet also very different.

In this essay I tease out the notion of social order that underpins Veblen's numerous contributions and examine its development over time. In piecing together various components of Veblen's conception, in particular his notions of habit, institution and habituation, I challenge various existing interpretations of Veblen's thinking on these and related matters.

The current crisis has triggered significant debate concerning economic theory and policy. Largely absent from this debate is an informed discussion of the methods used by economists in analysing the economy and formulating their proposals. But method matters. Here I argue that current academic research practices need to be transformed before real insight can be achieved. Specifically, I indicate why and how a more grounded framework than that presupposed by current research practices facilitates a potentially more fruitful approach to understanding the crisis.

Insights from social ontology are utilised to provide a novel, or at least clarified, conception of the firm. The latter is shown to be a particular form of social entity that is both of an economic and legal nature. The limited company or 'corporation' is shown to be a specific form of firm. A central distinguishing feature of the argument is that positioning matters in social identity constitution and different sorts of phenomena are positioned in different ways. The company/corporation is constituted in a manner that is a hybrid of other forms of positioning. Notions such as legal fiction and legal personality that abound in the related literature, often in confused ways, are also clarified. Various consequences are drawn for further analyses at the levels of method, theory and policy.