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from the how-bad-can-something-called-the-dismal-science-be? dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes:
Economics affects us all, so why do so many remain ignorant of the fundamentals? Murray Rothbard said: "[I]t is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance."
Personally I'm tired of having to defend economics against both the mainstream advocates (with their broken models) and their critics (who tar economics with one brush). I take the time to educate myself and speak out, based on reason, not angry ignorance, and not on smugness, numerology, and appeals to the authority Lord Keynes.
There is a deep-seated tendency for people to misapply physical science techniques to the social sciences. This has resulted in mainstream economics degenerating into a modern day numerology. However there are intellectually sound schools of economics that do not attempt to treat human actions like Newtonian atoms.
This article from The Mises Institute discusses how and why mainstream economics has lost its way.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:27AM
I take the time to educate myself and speak out, based on reason, not angry ignorance, and not on smugness, numerology, and appeals to the authority Lord Keynes.
There is a lot of irony in making all those insults and then turning around and holding up the Lord Mises as an authority.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday December 19 2016, @03:33AM
Oh, you mean "libertarian economics"! More of a dream than a science. Totally impervious to data, experimental testing, or even logic. In fact, it is indeed one of the leading candidates for the dark matter we seem to be missing in the universe.
Social Darwinism:: Social Miserism? It's not the fault of great minds that their followers are clueless, nor is it the fault of "great minds" that their minds were in fact not all that great. I now summon the demon khallow!!! Stand back, lest ye be singed!
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @04:07AM
Oh, you mean "Keynesian economics"! More of a dream than a science. Totally impervious to data, experimental testing, or even logic. In fact, it is indeed one of the leading candidates for the dark matter we seem to be missing in the universe.
Social Darwinism:: Social socialism? It's not the fault of great minds that their followers are clueless, nor is it the fault of "great minds" that their minds were in fact not all that great. I now summon the demon aristarchus!!! Stand back, lest ye be singed!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Monday December 19 2016, @06:40AM
Burn, you AC heretic! Burn in the fires of your own ignorance! If you dare defend libertarian economics, mountains of retribution and bad karma, and bad money supplies, will fall upon your head! But seriously, again, what do you think hell really is? Sartre was famous for saying "Hell is other people". There is a text, I think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Exit [wikipedia.org] But even more seriously, traditionally hell is nothing more than separation from God, who is the truth, so ignorance is hell.
.
Of course this may not make sense to you, since you are ignorant. I suggest that you watch the White Bear episode on Black Mirror on Netflix. Not sure why. You may be just like this, and I don't think it is fair. Please, study some economics, and you will realize Keynes was right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @07:08AM
Checked the link, it is some pseudointellectual waste of time I was forced to read in school... why not provide topical links in stead of something like the bible that can be interpreted to mean anything?
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday December 19 2016, @08:03AM
Forced to read in school, were we? Compulsory education not good enough for you? Well just wait until you're walking home, late at night, and some homocidal maniac comes at you with a bunch of poorly digested Ayn Rand! Don't come crying to me, Mister! Forced to read! I swear. Actual books, then, was it?
Here is another link, no reading, so you will be alright. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U90dnUbZMmM [youtube.com] Pointed sticks, eh? And you think this is any worse than the writings of the Vienna Circle? Come at me with this banana! Be as vicious as you like with it!! Come on, you Apricot Coward!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:29AM
As can be seen by our current crop of under/post-graduates, quality is far more important than quantity when it comes to reading. There is a line between education and indoctrination and we have run screaming across it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:04AM
Yeah, right, oh illiterate Buzzard! When it comes to reading, quantity is quality! There is never too much reading! Even reading stuff that is totally wrong, like propaganda from the von Misers Institute and the Online Liberty Library [libertyfund.org] (actually, they have some good stuff, for free, in total contradistinction to their ideology!). If you read enough, the crazy starts to show itself. Surely you know people who only read one book, whether it is τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια or "Atlas Shrugged", and these people cannot tell the crazy, since they have not read enough. So I should not be surprised if my submission on the attempt to censor liberal college professors does not make the light of Soylent Day, again?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:26PM
Reading foolishness does nothing to advance either your own mind or humanity. You can hear idiocy all day long simply by not plugging your ears and save yourself the price of a book. Spend your time reading something intelligent instead and you've bettered both yourself and the sum total of human cognitive ability.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @08:24AM
> Totally impervious to data, experimental testing, or logic.
You must be referring to mainstream economics.
Austrian economics is based on deductive reasoning, i.e. logic. Mainstream economics is based on hand waving cherry picking data, and banging on it until the maths shows something, and then claiming that they have found the truth. This is pure physics envy.
Social Darwinism is an accusation often leveled at libertarians, however this is a peculiarity of the cult of Objectivism. Altruism is a human action, explained and not condemned my Austrian Economics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @09:31AM
Austrian economics is based on deductive reasoning, i.e. logic.
Yes, on totally fantastic axioms. Deductive reasoning from insane premises gives insane conclusions. Ayn Rand on Medicare.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:32AM
Altruism, differentiated from simple compassionate acts by the huge helping of unearned guilt involved, is not remotely a good thing. Helping people because you feel it is a good way to spend your life is laudible, helping them because you feel guilty about having more/better is a form of mental illness.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @08:30AM
> There is a lot of irony in making all those insults and then turning around and holding up the Lord Mises as an authority.
There is important difference between citation and an argument from authority.
Btw, Mises never held the title of Lord, and was unpopular with the political establishment, since his ideas did not suit their agenda.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday December 19 2016, @03:29PM
There is a lot of irony in making all those insults and then turning around and holding up the Lord Mises as an authority.
Indeed, though there's a clue in the sentence you quoted about what Mises was really about -- i.e., "based on reason."
That doesn't mean what most people think it does. Here it refers to rationalism [wikipedia.org], which, philosophically, is pretty much the opposite of "science" as commonly understood today. Modern science derives its method from empiricism, i.e., the belief that we can learn from data in the world, which can be used to refine our hypotheses and theories.
Rationalism, in the more technical sense, appeals to "pure reason" and formal logic as the only basis for "true" knowledge. For example, if you observe something in the real world that contradicts your theory, you don't assume your theory could be falsified, instead you assume that something's wrong with the world. Rather than correcting or revising your theory (or even rejecting it entirely), which an empirical scientist might do, you assume that you simply made a bad observation, or you didn't understand this observation correctly and once you do, it will obviously conform to the TRUTH you KNOW to be true, through private deduction in your own head from unproven (but "True") axioms.
In science, the rationalist perspective was pretty much categorically rejected in the 17th century at the height of the "Scientific Revolution." In fact, some would argue that was actually what the Scientific Revolution was really about -- the immediate generations of intellectuals afterward certainly thought so. If you look at 18th century commentators looking back, they don't talk about Kepler and Galileo and Newton and a revolution in astronomy -- they talk about Descartes and other folks rejecting Aristotle and "rationalist" pedantry in favor of a something closer to our modern empiricism.
So, for a fan of Mises to be putting forth a headline on the flaws in "economic science" -- it's beyond irony. It almost seems like this submission could have been written as satire. If you don't believe me about the Mises folks and their anti-empirical basis -- Read their own website [mises.org], with its explicit rejection of empiricism and lauding of "a priori" truths.
By the way, none of this is to say that "mainstream" economics is good or the model of good "science" -- in many cases, it is also far from it. But for a Mises groupie to lecture the world on "science" is laughable.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday December 19 2016, @07:01PM
"Rationalism" in the sense you are using it should usually be specified as "Continental Rationalism", and the empiricism as "British Empiricism" The lineage of these Continental Libertarian Economic types runs more from the school of "Positivism" [wikipedia.org], roughly founded by Auguste Comte some time after the French Revolution. This school aims at the rational analysis of empirical facts, but mostly at removing all metaphysics, religion, politics, and artsy-fartsy stuff from science. But in the case of Libertarianism, they are literally hoist by their own petard!
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday December 19 2016, @08:30PM
While I mostly agree with your qualifiers, I can't say that I agree with your characterization of the Mises folks as coming out of Positivism. To the contrary, the link I noted in my previous post from the Mises website explicitly rejects Positivism, embraces (Continental) Rationalism, and views empiricism (British or otherwise) as fundamentally limited and unable to address the types of economic and political questions the Mises folks want to claim to answer.
I'm NOT saying all followers of Mises necessarily agree with this perspective, and some of them are indeed more in the Positivist tradition. But the essay I linked isn't the only place among Mises materials that I've seen explicit rejections of empiricism and an embrace of old-school rationalist epistemologies.
(Score: 1) by segwonk on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:43AM
Apologies: Off topic.
Just wanted to say to both you, AthanasiusKircher, and aristarchus - I really appreciate your insightful, informative and above all, civilized posts. I look forward to reading SN to see what I can learn for the day. Thank you so much! [Of course there are many other contributors I enjoy as well, but I was inspired to say something now for some reason.]
.......go til ya know.