Post-Walrasian Economics: A Marxist Critique

Post-Walrasian economics is the result of a conver- gence between heterodox schools, such as new institutionalism, new Keynesian economics and radical political economics. The debate on power develops mainly within this methodological framework. Liberals and radicals have confronted each other harshly about the nature of power in capitalism, but their common method leads to the same mysti ed conception. Marx discussed the class nature of competition and explained how social coercion and individual freedom coexist in capitalism. Post-Walrasians represent competition as the highest expression of individual freedom and characterize power as its negation. Reality is thus turned upside- down, as in old vulgar economics: the power relation suffered by the worker is not caused by his/her social weakness, but by his/ her individual strength. From the questions it raises to the answers it offers, post-Walrasian economics is only a product of bourgeois ideology and a tool to reinforce its myths.