Аннотация:The paper notes that in orthodoxy, reductionism has been practiced for a long time, unlike heterodoxy, where it is used relatively recently. In this connection, the question arises, what is heterodoxy against: against economic reductionism as such, or against the conscious or unconscious rotation through reductionism of the real picture of the economic world? To separate the positive and negative manifestations of the use of the principles of reductionism, it is proposed to distinguish between two types of production: constructive, which serves as a tool foranalyzing complex systems, and non-constructive, which ignores economic realities and nonreduced components.Keywords: orthodoxy, heterodoxy, constructive reduction, non-constructive reduction, home economicus, homo instututius.