More than any other social science discipline, economics is unified by a dominant theoretical structure, highly developed, mathematically stated, scientifically conceived, thought and taught as truth, and subject only to slight revisions and changes of emphasis within academic and policy circles that reach into the highest echelons of power. Yet, more than other disciplines, economics rests on simplistic assumptions (about human behavior especially) that are taken as given for all time. Economics develops in an intellectual vacuum of high mathematics and unrealistic models, isolates itself from fundamental critiques, and reaches dubious conclusions that, while they affect everyone, are conspicuously lacking in democratic input. These tendencies in contemporary mainstream economics are highly related: it is precisely the policy powerfulness of economics that prevents it from having to take criticism seriously; and it is precisely the mathematical complexity of economics that precludes the whole populace from participating in the construction of economic knowledge. Arguments like these apply with double force to the economics of development, which cries out for participation by those being developed.