July 9, 2013

Alternatives are welcome

Comment on Edward Fullbrook on 'Dr. X'

Blog-Reference

If you think that standard economics produces “pure shit” (this thread's implicit consensus) then you are at a loss to explain why the German Historical School did not do better in the last 100 years than it actually did. Humboldt would not have approved of this performance.

As a matter of fact, it is quite simple to get the neoclassicals out of academia: “There is no evidence to suggest that economists abandon degenerating programs in the absence of a progressive alternative. We do not, in the face of falsified theories in the belt of a program, abandon that program until there is an alternative program with theories that are themselves corroborated.” (Weintraub, 1985, p. 148)

“... if you think you can do better with a non-neoclassical model ..., then you are quite welcome to try.” (Boland, 1992, p. 19)

GHT has its merits but it is not the progressive alternative.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


References
Boland, L. A. (1992). The Principles of Economics. Some Lies my Teacher Told Me. London, New York: Routledge.
Weintraub, E. R. (1985). Joan Robinson’s Critique of Equilibrium: An Appraisal. American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 75(2): 146–149. URL