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Within the terms of the dominant theory, unemployment can only be the consequence of excessive wage-levels. The procedures resorted to in support of such a hypothesis do however tend to violate a reality which remains stubbornly recalcitrant, even when the most sophisticated devices of formalization are adopted. Since the domination exercised by the dominant economic model is not a function of its actual epistemological productiveness, it is worthwhile to reflect on the operational conditions governing a field that is polarized between theory and ideology.