“Well said except economics is not about how an economy works. It is the study of allocating scarce resources that have alternative uses.” (Ray Lauletti) Parroting Robbins's pseudo-scientific definition keeps you and your Austrian buddies in the mental trap. Accustomed behavioral definitions of economics: “It is a touchstone of accepted economics that all explanations must run in terms of the actions and reactions of individuals.” (Arrow, 1994) “Economics is the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.” (Robbins, 1935) Axiomatically correct objective-systemic definition: “Economics is the science that studies how the economic system works.” (AXEC) Here is Robbins's methodological blunder in a nutshell: “The propositions of economic theory, like all scientific theory, are obviously deductions from a series of postulates. And the chief of these postulates are all assumptions involving in some way simple and indisputable facts of experience….’ With this methodology, axioms are certain, and logical deductions are certain, so there is no room for conflict with experience. This is exactly the same as axiomatic Greek geometry, which can never be wrong because it is based on certainties and driven by logic.” There is no such thing as 'simple and indisputable facts of experience'. Observation is theory-laden perception. From the beginning, Austrianism has suffered from the Fallacy of Insufficient Abstraction. The move from the old behavioral definition to the new systemic=behavior-free definition of economics is called a Paradigm Shift. Nothing less will do to get economics out of its proto-scientific deadlock. It's high time, after more than 200 years of proto-scientific garbage.
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) November 13, 2026
November 13, 2026
Occasional X: Paradigm Shift (CXXXIII)
