By conducting a discourse analysis (SKAD) in the field of academic economics textbooks, this paper aims at reconstructing frames and identity options offered to undergraduate students relating to the questions ‘Why study economics?’ and ‘Who do I become by studying economics?’. The analysis showed three major frames and respective identity offerings, all of which are contextualized theoretically, with prominent reference to the Foucauldian reflection of the science of Political Economy. Surprisingly, none of them encourages the student to think critically, as could have been expected in a pedagogical context. Taken together, economics textbooks appear as a “total structure of actions brought to bear upon possible action” (Foucault), therefore, as a genuine example of Foucauldian power structures.

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Aufbauend auf neueren und älteren Forschungsergebnissen zum Einfluss von ÖkonomInnen auf politische Entscheidungsprozesse und mediale wirtschaftspolitische Debatten wird in diesem Beitrag ein eklatantes polit-ökonomisches Machtungleichgewicht unter einflussreichen ökonomischen ExpertInnen aufgezeigt: Es kann vor allem in Deutschland eine starke Dominanz von neo- bzw. ordoliberalen Interessenskoalitionen bzw. –netzwerken gegenüber alternativen, keynesianischen oder gewerkschaftsnahen Netzwerken konstatiert werden, wohingegen in Österreich durch eine noch stärkere Bedeutung korporatistischer Strukturen dieses Ungleichgewicht zumindest schwächer ausgeprägt ist.

From the two premises that (1) economies are complex systems and (2) the accumulation of knowledge about reality is desirable, I derive the conclusion that pluralism with regard to economic research programs is a more viable position to hold than monism. To substantiate this claim an epistemological framework of how scholars study their objects of inquiry and relate their models to reality is discussed. Furthermore, it is argued that given the current institutions of our scientific system, economics self-organizes towards a state of scientific unity. Since such a state is epistemologically inferior to a state of plurality, critical intervention is desirable.