Blog-Reference
Blair Fix summarizes: “If you ask the average person what ‘science’ is, they’ll probably answer something like ‘it’s what we know about the world’. To the lay person, ‘science’ is a body of facts. To the trained scientist, however, ‘science’ means something different. It’s not a body of knowledge. It’s a method for determining what’s true and what’s not. To determine the way the world works, science appeals to evidence. The ideal of science is beautifully summarized by the motto of the Royal Society: nullius in verba. It means ‘take nobody’s word for it’. In science, there is no authority. There are no gods, no kings, and no masters. Only evidence.”
In more technical terms: “Research is, in fact, a continuous discussion of the consistency of theories: formal consistency insofar as the discussion relates to the logical cohesion of what is asserted in joint theories; material consistency insofar as the agreement of observations with theories is concerned.” (Klant)
Economics claims to be science#1 but is merely what Feynman called a cargo cult science. As always and everywhere, there is the genuine thing and the look-alike: “They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. ... But it doesn’t work. ... So I call these things cargo cult science because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential.”
The general public cannot spontaneously tell the difference between the genuine thing and the look-alike and this provides a comfortable ecological niche for the look-alikes in all walks of life from the ordinary impostor to the fake scientist.#2
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.
Political economics has produced NOTHING of scientific value in the last 200+ years. The major approaches — Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT — are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent and all got the foundational economic concept profit wrong.
Theoretical economics has to be judged according to the criteria true/false and NOTHING else. Theoretical economics, though, had been hijacked from the very beginning by the agenda pushers of political economics.
Blair Fix thinks this is due to our evolutionary heritage: “When we do science, we have to fight against this tribal instinct. Not surprisingly, we often fail. Rational skepticism gets overpowered by the instinct to trust members of our group. If the group happens to be powerful — say it dominates academia in a particular discipline — then false ideas get entrenched as ‘facts’. This is a problem in all areas of science. But it’s a rampant problem in economics. The teaching of economics is dominated by the neoclassical sect, which has managed to entrench itself in academia. Among this sect, I believe, tribal instincts trump the rational appeal to evidence.”
This evolutionary explanation is a bit silly. Economics is not science but the propaganda arm of the Oligarchy. The heap of inconsistent economic approaches has no truth-value, however, this does not matter much in the political realm where all that counts is propagandistic use-value. More has not been expected by the founders and funders of economics departments, chairs, and institutions. And this has always been delivered. Rockefeller called the university ‘the best investment’ he ever made.
This ― and NOT biologically entrenched tribalism ― is the built-in bias of economics. Economics is controlled with the usual incentives of prestige and money and publicity. Economists are the useful idiots of the Oligarchy which selects their agenda pushers systematically and rewards them handsomely.#3 Arrow, Debreu and other members of the Cowles “tribe” were awarded the “Nobel” for the “proof” of the superiority of the market economy, i.e. for a political PR stunt and not for a genuine scientific achievement.#4
Tribalism is NOT the problem of economics, scientific incompetence is.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 About the “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel” see here.
#2 The economist as storyteller
#3 How to spot economics trolls
#4 Economics, math, pluralism, and corruption
Related 'Circus Maximus: Economics as entertainment, personality gossip, virtue signaling, and lifestyle promotion' and 'Economics ― not science, not ideology, just useful idiocy' and 'Economics, too, is pre-truth' and 'There is NO such thing as “smart, honest, honorable economists”' and 'Economists’ silly kindergarten games' and 'Links on capital-T Truth, stupidity, corruption' and 'Links on the Economics Nobel'.
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REPLY to Yoshinori Shiozawa on Oct 11You say: “What do you propose as theoretical economics that challenges to explain how the actual economy works? This is the most important point. Criticizing neoclassical economics alone does not bring a new economics i.e. theoretical economics that explains how the actual economy works.”
True indeed and basic methodological stuff: “The moral of the story is simply this: it takes a new theory, and not just the destructive exposure of assumptions or the collection of new facts, to beat an old theory.” (Blaug)
So, a Paradigm Shift is indispensable. Economics has to move from false Walrasian microfoundations and false Keynesian macrofoundations and false heterodox Pluralism to true macrofoundations.
For details of the big picture see cross-references Paradigm Shift.
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REPLY to Ken Zimmerman on Oct 13The major approaches — Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT — are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent and all got the foundational economic concept profit wrong. Economics is a failed science.
The axiomatically correct macroeconomic Profit Law is given by Q=Yd+(I−S)+(G−T)+(X−M) and boils down to Public Deficit (G−T>0) = Private Profit Q which means that the Oligarchy’s financial wealth and public debt grow in lockstep. It is the very characteristic of the free-market economy that it is already for a long time on the life support of the State. Profit is produced mainly by the government through deficit-spending/money-creation.#1 The Oligarchy, in turn, uses the opulent free lunches to corrupt what remains of the State’s legislative, executive, judiciary institutions, including academia.#2
All this happens openly before the authors and commentators of the RWER blog. These folks, though, in their bottomless stupidity realize NOTHING but instead blather about biology/evolution, god/religion, astronomy, and the invention of human sociality about 20,000-30,000 years ago.
This senseless blather, of course, distracts from the biggest deficit-coup of all times that the Oligarchy is currently pulling off with the help of a bunch of MMT academics.#3
Economics has NEVER been a science but a smokescreen for political agenda pushing. BOTH orthodox and heterodox economists are stupid or corrupt or both. And the whole pile of scientific and human crap is tomorrow crowned for the 50th time with the “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”.
#1 Keynes, Lerner, MMT, Trump, etc. and exploding profit
#2 For a meeting-photo of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein and economist Larry Summers see Twitter and New York Times
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| Source: Twitter |
#3 Dear idiots, MMTers are Wall Street’s agenda pushers
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#PointOfProof
Oct 15