Dynamics within Economic Theory

Abstract

This essay endeavors into the sources and drivers of dynamics in the development of economic theory, and economics in general. Postulating an essentially dynamic discipline, it discusses the progress of economic thought as an interaction between evolutionary and cyclical processes, in which development takes place through the creative “reinvention of the wheel”. Major achievements in this progress are rooted in discontent or crisis and driven by a competition on the “marketplace for ideas”. However, this market is often biased by the incumbent’s advantage against a competitive fringe of new ideas, as well as by political influences that raise the competition to an interdisciplinary level by questioning the dominance of economics in policymaking.