July 29, 2020

Economics is a disgrace

Comment on Claudia Sahm on ‘Economics is a disgrace’*


Economics is an institution and a science. Claudia Sahm gives a personal summary of the toxic institutional culture, “We hurt economists from undergraduate classrooms to offices at the White House. We drive away talent; we mistreat those who stay; and we tolerate bad behavior.” So, economics is a failed institution, “Burn it down”.

Being not a part of this institution, I am not entitled to comment on it.

The all-decisive point about economics is not human failure but scientific failure. Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT, and Pluralism are materially/ formally inconsistent and therefore scientifically worthless.#1

The blunder is, with regard to the subject matter, at the axiomatic level and with regard to formal consistency at the level of elementary algebra.

Microfoundations are false since 150+ years. Macrofoundations are false since Keynes. Economists did not spot Keynes' foundational blunder to this day.

THIS is the indelible disgrace of economics.#2 The mistreatment of students/colleagues is bad, the mistreatment of science is worse. Institutional failure is bad, scientific failure is worse.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 Section Exemplary proof of the inconsistency of economics in Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?
#2 See Ch. 13, The indelible scientific disgrace of economics, in Sovereign Economics, BoD

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