"After the Revolutions of 1848, the age of Classical Political Economy ended. Economists became much more careful in allowing realism to seep into their works. Consequently, they became far more sterile."
I know what you mean. I once had a fantastic lover who was an economist (from Romania). He emigrated, got a post doc at Carnegie Mellon and then some kind of fellowship at Stanford. This was the late seventies, when they were still courting east european intellectuals and showering them with goodies.
When not in bed, he spent a lot of time, brows furrowed, with pad and pencil drawing coordinates and squiggly lines. The coordinates had no labels or units, and the squiggles seemed like, well, squiggles. It left an indelible picture in my mind of how economics was currently practiced. Even so, the squiggles proved too realistic for academia; he eventually got a govt job.
Joanna