Comment on John Ioannidis/Los Angeles Times on ‘Economics isn’t a bogus science ― we just don’t use it correctly’
Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference on Nov 17
John Ioannidis argues: “But these crises and scandals do not mean that the SCIENCE of economics is inherently unreliable. Most of them occurred because we ignored what we knew. Perhaps most obviously, we deputized ― and continue to deputize ― the wrong people as authorities. … But the opinions of wealthy tycoons are often dissociated from SCIENTIFIC evidence, out of touch with reality and all too plainly wrong. … Similarly, politicians rarely use economic SCIENCE to make decisions and set new laws. Indeed, it is scary how little SCIENCE informs political choices on a global scale. Those who decide the world’s economic fate typically have a weak SCIENTIFIC background or none at all.”
John Ioannidis desperately tries to convince the audience that economics is a SCIENCE. Economists have attempted this from Adam Smith/Karl Marx onward up to the “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic SCIENCES in Memory of Alfred Nobel”.
Fact is that economics is a failed/fake science or what Feynman called a cargo cult science.
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as economics. There are TWO economixes: political economics and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The goal of political economics is to successfully push an agenda, the goal of theoretical economics is to successfully explain how the actual economy works. (ii) In political economics anything goes; in theoretical economics, the scientific standards of material and formal consistency are observed.
For non-economists, the most important thing to realize is that theoretical economics (= science) had been hijacked from the very beginning by political economists (= agenda pushers). Political economics has produced NOTHING of scientific value in the last 200+ years.
The four main approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism ― are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent, and ALL got the foundational concept of the subject matter ― profit ― wrong.#1, #2
The fact that economists do not know what profit is, makes economics a proto-science comparable to medieval physics before the foundational concept of energy was properly defined and understood. Methodologically it holds for 2300+ years: “When the premises are certain, true, and primary, and the conclusion formally follows from them, this is demonstration, and produces scientific knowledge of a thing.” (Aristotle)
So, when the premises (foundational concepts, axioms, primitive propositions, postulates, principles, hardcore assumptions, etc) are false the whole analytical superstructure is false and NO SCIENTIFIC knowledge of a thing is produced.
Because economics is a failed/fake science it has to be reconstructed from scratch. In methodological terms, economics needs a Paradigm Shift, that is, Walrasian microfoundations and Keynesian macrofoundations have to be scrapped and fully replaced by consistent (= certain, true, and primary) macrofoundations.
John Ioannidis does not understand this because he is a bogus scientist.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 The Profit Theory is False Since Adam Smith
#2 “A satisfactory theory of profits is still elusive.” (Palgrave Dictionary, Desai, 2008) For details of the big picture see cross-references Profit
Related 'Keynes, Euclid, and economic methodology' and 'Economics: 200+ years of scientific incompetence and fraud' and 'Heterodoxy, too, is proto-scientific garbage' and 'The real problem with the economics Nobel' and 'Economics: a science without scientists' and 'There is NO such thing as an economic expert' and 'Schizonomics' and '10 steps to leave cargo cult economics behind for good'. For details of the big picture see cross-references Failed/Fake Scientists and cross-references Scientific Incompetence.
