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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: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday December 19 2016, @12:01PM
Economics as I know it is quantifying human behavior and searching for the patterns in those actions to understand the contours of the system of human behavior and how it changes as inputs change.
If modern economics has lost its way, it is because it is trying to model a system based on rational actors when the system is bound up in the gyres of crony capitalism. The distortions caused by that throw any model they might devise out the window.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday December 19 2016, @12:34PM
is actually composed of billions of frequently irrational humans.
FTFY
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @08:11PM
Thanks for that Phoenix666.
Economics is about creating models (typically with lots of Greek letters and Lagrangian optimization under constraint). It's also about testing the models empirically using stats and p-values and Beta coefficients. I'm not saying that economics cannot err, or be abused deliberately. What I say is that it contains what it needs to self-correct with new facts and smarter models; it progresses like any other science in a Khunian or Lakatoshian way.
Although I'm certainly not against heterodox methods in social sciences, what is presented in the submission is junk nonsense from charcoal-funded propagandists; They say nothing, except linking to their propaganda website. That's an ignorance-based evangelization campaign.
-An actual economist