August 15, 2017

Economics: a "science" from suckers for suckers

Comment on Sandwichman on ‘The “Narratives” of Higgins’s “Warfare”’

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference

Economists claim to do science and communicate this every year to the general public with the “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”. Whether the claim to be a science is self-delusion or fraud does not matter much. Fact is:
  • the profit theory is false for 200+ years,
  • Walrasian microfoundations (including equilibrium) are inconsistent for 150+ years,
  • Keynesian macrofoundations (including I=S, IS-LM) are inconsistent for 80+ years.
Economics is a failed science or what Feynman called a cargo cult science. Fact No 1: There are opinions and brain-dead blather. This is called politics. There are knowledge and proof. This is called science. Fact No 2: Theoretical economics (= science) had been hijacked from the very beginning by political economists (= agenda pushers). Fact No 3: Political economics has produced NOTHING of scientific value in 200+ years. Fact No 4: Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, and Austrianism is mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, and materially/formally inconsistent. Fact No 5: Economists are quite content with the pluralism of false theories, they do not have any real scientific ambitions. Fact No 6: Economics is a cargo cult science from suckers for suckers. Fact No 7: Economic debates between orthodox and heterodox economists or between left-wingers and right-wingers are ALWAYS inconclusive and not more than an intellectual Zombie wrestling show.

These are the recent topics on the EconoSpeak blog:
  • The “Narratives” of Higgins’s “Warfare” (cultural Marxism, Frankfurt School, Marcuse’s Repressive Tolerance, Breivik’s Manifesto, Hitler’s Mein Kampf)
  • “Rational” Optimism? (realized material benefits, risks of catastrophic climate change, nuclear war)
  • The Buchanan-MacLean Controversy (socialism, racial segregation, Austrian libertarianism, Mont Pelerin Society, neoliberalism, Koch brothers, Trump, climate change denial, Hayek-Friedman-Pinochet, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Kim Il Sung, public choice theory, corrupt government agencies, rent-seeking, crushing labor unions, Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises).
  • The Higgins Memo, Anders Breivik and the Lyndon LaRouche Cult (Lunatic fringe, Norway mass murder, White Christian Nationalism, Multiculturalism, White House, Foreign policy)
  • The Financial Crisis Tenth Anniversary (Bubbles, FED-ECB actions, bail-outs, collateral Euro near-crash)
  • Avik Roy Claims Reagan Embraced Universal Health Care Coverage.
All this is sociology, philosophy, politics, folk psychology, or gossip. There is not one iota of science or consistent theoretical economics. To recall, theoretical economics is supposed to figure out how the economy works just like physics is supposed to figure out how the universe works.

Entrance is free in politics and every sucker can climb on a soapbox and demand tax cuts or tell something about liberty and democracy. The entrance to science is only free for those who are able and committed to advancing scientific knowledge. Until now economics could not get the suckers off its back. That is why it is still at the proto-scientific stage.

It is pretty obvious that EconoSpeak is not committed to anything else than political blather. But, then, what is to be expected from proto-scientific storytellers like Sandwichman, ProGrowthLiberal, Peter Dorman, and Barkley Rosser.#1

Needless to say, the other economics blogs are not any better.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 Fact of life: your econ prof is scientifically incompetent

Related 'In search of new economists' and 'Barkley Rosser, fake scientist' and 'Economics between cargo cult, farce, and fraud' and 'Your economics is refuted on all counts: here is the real thing'.


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Twitter 4 Jul Political economics is driven by Dark Money