Comment on Peter Dorman on ‘Review of Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality by James Kwak’
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Economics claims since Adam Smith/Karl Marx to be a science. Yet, everybody who looks closer into the matter comes to the conclusion that economics is a failed science. The four main approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism ― are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent, and all got the pivotal concept of the subject matter, i.e. profit, wrong.
In this hopeless situation, critique is futile: “There is another alternative: to formulate a completely new research program and conceptual approach. As we have seen, this is often spoken of, but there is still no indication of what it might mean.” (Ingrao et al., 1990)
James Kwak, too, has not the slightest idea what a paradigm shift means: “To wrap up, Kwak points out that, whatever its faults, economism delivers by having a simple, all-purpose, easy-to-grasp message and then asks, ‘What’s our message?’ His answer is that wealthy economies don’t need economic growth or even economic efficiency as they used to, and we should all turn away from economic concerns and embrace happiness instead.”#1
Instead of coming up with a ‘completely new research program and conceptual approach’ as a replacement for the standard approach, which is known to be false on all methodological counts, Kwak dishes out cheap advice from the self-help workshop: don’t worry, be happy. To top it all, this abortive pseudo-critical exercise is advertised as new economic thinking.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 The economist’s pick: liar, moron or what?