Moreover, economists have used quantitative techniques too often without due regard to their epistemological and technical limits. Some of this has been done in order to reach certain substantive results, some to reach determinate results, and some to reach optimal solutions. But much of it is due to the failure to recognize the limits of deduction, the limits of induction, and the limits of particular econometric techniques. (Samuels, 1998,p.354)

“Indeed, this delibate concentration on two or three keyrelationships treated moreover under specific assumptions or simply axioms as to human behavior which individuals in a particular social system may or may not follow – does indeed make possible the use of a quantitative mathematical treatment and facilitates the search for determinate levels of stable equilibrium but it is a form loose theoretization based upon concepts which have no clear empirical counterpart – a procedure which most institutionalists would regard as a misuse of the method of simplification and abstraction.In fact they consider this procedure not only as a misuse of theoretical analysis but as a potentially dangerous trivialization of the use of reason which is rapidly making of economics a technique rather than a social science.”(Kapp, 1968, p. 7)

故数理逻辑只不过是掩饰其「伪科学的门面」（pseudoscientific façade）[7]；其对经济学门的学术发展，不仅毫无助益，更是带来「灾难」（disastrous.）[8]。

（二）反思经济学门的发展

数理的运用虽然未能提升经济学的科学地位，但其毕竟形成一种「典范」，而且能够在社会科学的领域，享有其学术权威和霸权，并且已成为「教条」；故其关键不在于其科学地位或理论的有效性，而是学术社群内、外权力运作之被宰制与扭曲。由二十世纪美国经济学的发展历史之检视，可以略知一二：

“Economics’ searching for an identity, its feelings of inadequacy, its paranoia, its infrangible link with policy and the subsequent influence of (control by) outsiders, its tendency toward quantification and penchant for modeling are all intertwined threads of the fabric of economics’ history. Nothing better demonstrates this than the story behind the development of quantification, the most salient trend in American economics.” (Redman, 1993, p.156)

首先就外在力量的影响，主要有二股力量；一是财阀的掌控[9]，另一是政治上的「白色恐怖」：

“In its first half century or so as a subject of instruction and research, economics was subject to censorship by outsiders. Businessmen and their political and ideological acolytes kept watch on departments of economics and reacted promptly to heresy, the latter being anything that seemed to threaten the sanctity of property, profits, a proper tariff policy, a balanced budget, or which involved sympathy for unions, public ownership, public regulation or, in any organized way, for the poor. The growing power and self-confidence of the educational estate, the formidable and growing complexity of our subject and, no doubt, the increasing acceptability of our ideas has largely relieved us of this intervention.”(Galbraith, 1973, pp. 1~2)

在政治的白色恐怖方面，一九五○年代的「麦卡锡主义」（McCarthyism）亦产生相当程度的影响[10]：

“There has, however, been another important influence at work, virtually ignored because of an academic conspiracy of silence. This was the traumatic impact on the American university system of the McCarthy communist witch-hunting period, which served notice on prudent American economists to confine their attention to ‘scientific’ problems and steer clear of issues that might raise suspicions about loyalty to the American nation. The consequence of prudence of this kind was extreme vulnerability to ‘radical’ student demands for ‘relevance’ and for ‘political economy’ rather than ‘(mathematical) economics’, …” (Johnson, 1977, p. 25)[11].

就一个民主社会，麦卡锡主义的影响，毕竟只是短暂的干扰，但财阀的掌控，在一个资本主义社会，不仅却无法摆脱，且由有形转为无形，其并渗入经济学学术社群。故学术社群内的影响力量，值得详细加以检视。正如Galbraith (1973, p.2)所指出的：

“But in place of the old censorship has come a new despotism. That consists defining scientific excellence as whatever is closet in belief and method to the scholarly tendency of the people who are already there. This is a pervasive and oppressive thing not the less dangerous for being, in the frequent case, both self-righteous and unconscious.”

三、科学或权力：揭露经济学门之学术社群的真相

回顾百余年来经济学门的学术「演化」，以「异化」来描述，似乎再贴切不过了。当经济学被贯上 ”-ics” 与物理学并驾齐驱，取得「科学」的地位，同时，并赢得「社会科学的女皇」之后，却也开始陷入危机；经济学的危机，并非只是经济学门内的茶壶里的风暴，在所谓「经济学帝国主义」[12]的垄罩之下，在学术领域其更扩散至其它社会科学的学门；不仅如此，在现实政策层面，其更导致国家经济的畸形发展，扭曲人类社会的价值[13]。其学术「权威」也开始受到质疑与批判。

但质疑归质疑，批判归批判，毕竟均未能带来「科学革命」，新古典经济学在经济学门的主流典范地位，却丝毫未发生动摇：

“Yet despite the apparent soul-searching, the teaching of economics, the hiring of young economists and the granting of tenure, the financing of research, and the pages of prestigious ‘refereed’ journals all evidence deep resistance to change.” (Kuttner, 1985, p. 74)

究其缘由，主要因素有二：除了资本主义之社会结构使然[14]；经济学门的学术社群之内部权力结构，造就坚实的内在「合意性」（consensus）[15]，足以「安内攘外」，生生不息，绵延不绝：

“The power inherent in this system of quality within the economics profession is obviously very great. The discipline’s censors occupy leading posts in economics departments at the major institutions, and their students and lesser confreres occupy similar posts at nearly all the universities that train new Ph.D.’s. The lion’s share of appointment and dismissal power has been vested in the departments themselves at these institutions. Any economist with serious hopes of obtaining a tenured position in one of these departments will soon be made aware of the criteria by which he is to be judged. In a word, he is expected to become a normal economic scientist.” (Ward, 1972, pp. 29~30)

（一）美国经济学界的学术「证照」之授予

当经济学门逐渐形成一项「专门职业」（professionalizing），具备博士学位为进入此一专门职业的必备证照，而证照之授予，集中在少数大学；同时，这些大学往往又倾向只聘任自己的学生或「排名前几名」大学的毕业生。

在1935至1969年之间，所有授予经济学博士学位数，有超过半数来自排名前十六的大学。如果根据1966年之排名，依序为Harvard, MIT, University of Chicago, Yale, University of Chicago at Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton等均彼此相互聘任其毕业生[16]；而各大学经济学门之排名，主要又系根据各学系在「主要学术刊物」（the “leading” journals）发表的论文数量，而所谓的主要学术刊物系由这些大学所主导；不仅其编辑群几乎完全为这些大学的博士毕业生，而大多数的论文刊载者亦是。因此:

“Is it any wonder that the departments are ‘distinguished’? Thus the ‘best departments are those who publish in their own journals, which are ‘best’ since they publish the ‘best’ departments. This academic incest would be considered genetically unsound if it involved biological reproduction.” （Canterbery and Burkhardt, 1983,p. 28）[17]

这种封闭的优势地位，又透过所谓「同侪评鉴」之 ”Publish-or-Perish” 的升迁制度而强化，得以巩固、屹立不摇[18]。

（二）学术生涯之养成：”Publish-or-Perish”

经济学门不仅在理论的建构、表达语言、与研究方法，摹仿物理学，同时，在研究成果的评价方面，亦是如此；即以发表在「特定」期刊的论文「数量」以及论文的「新鲜度」为判准。并根据这样的数据指针，一方面决定一个人的学术生涯与命运，另方面决定学术机构的学术地位。