Comment on Chris Dillow on ‘On defences and attacks on economics’
Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference
Economics is a failed science, that is, the major approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism ― are mutually contradictory and axiomatically false. More specifically, it is not only so that orthodox/standard/mainstream economics is false as Heterodoxy ritually asserts, but traditional Heterodoxy, too, is false and never provided a valid alternative. What we actually have is the pluralism of false theories.
The current state of economics is that of a cargo cult or fake science. The point is this: “In order to tell the politicians and practitioners something about causes and best means, the economist needs the true theory or else he has not much more to offer than educated common sense or his personal opinion.” (Stigum, 1991)
Economists do NOT have the true theory. Lacking the true theory, in turn, means that economists do not understand how the monetary economy works, and from this follows finally that they are, as a matter of principle, in NO position to give economic policy guidance.
Scientific truth is well-defined by material and formal consistency. The argument that economists have not predicted the 2008 crash is somewhat beside the point because ― as a matter of principle ― scientists do not predict the future.#1 This is the business of political charlatans.
Chris Dillow argues “Quite simply, economists were not, for the most part, responsible for the 2008 crash ...“ This is true but they are indeed responsible for the enormous social devastations of mass unemployment since the Great Depression because unemployment is ultimately the result of a provably false labor market theory.#2
To argue against economists that they have not predicted crises is a mere distraction from the fact that economists are scientifically incompetent and that economics as a whole is a failed science. ALL explanations of failure are mere excuses.#3
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Science does NOT predict the future
#2 The one stone that kills orthodox and heterodox employment theory
#3 Failed economics: The losers’ long list of lame excuses
Related 'The united tribe of the scientifically incompetent' and 'Nothing to choose between Orthodoxy and traditional Heterodoxy' and 'Post Keynesianism, science, and universal idiocy' and 'Economists’ last Hurrah' and 'Where advanced Heterodoxy — represented by Steve Keen — took the wrong turn' and 'Economics: The pluralism of false theories is over'