Comment on Lars Syll on ‘Studying economics — a total waste of time’
Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference on Oct 17
Lars Syll argues: “It’s hard not to agree with Elster’s critique of mainstream economics and its practice of letting models and procedures become ends in themselves, without considerations of their lack of explanatory value as regards real-world phenomena. The message writes itself: If you’re really interested about what goes on in our economies — stay away from economics!”
This is correct but misses the point altogether. The lethal defect of economics is that the main approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT ― are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent, and ALL get the foundational economic concept of profit wrong.#1 Economics is a heap of proto-scientific garbage. Because of this, economic policy guidance NEVER has had sound scientific foundations. With regard to scientific content, there is NO difference between left/center/right policy.
So, there is NO such thing as a choice between bad Orthodoxy and good Heterodoxy. Heterodoxy, too, gets profit wrong. As a consequence, both Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy have to be buried for good at the Flat-Earth-Cemetery.#2 What is needed is a new Paradigm.
Mainstream economics is a waste of time and Lars Syll's brain-dead critique of mainstream economics is also a waste of time: “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) In methodological terms: it takes a Paradigm Shift.
The good news for scientists and the bad news for time wasters is that the Paradigm Shift is an accomplished fact. See the new textbook Sovereign Economics.#3
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#3 Sovereign Economics, Amazon.de, BoD, etc.