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Before we used the term "Economics", people used the term "Political Economics". It belies the fact (certain microeconomic modeling aside) that all economic the
by nickbauman 9y ago
Before we used the term "Economics", people used the term "Political Economics". It belies the fact (certain microeconomic modeling aside) that all economic theory is underpinned by moral assumptions or moral arguments. This is why it will never be a science.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> all economic theory is underpinned by moral assumptions or moral arguments. No, its not. There is both descriptive economic theory and prescriptive economic theory. Only the latter meets your description. Now, it's true that the latter is often accompanied by nonscientific descriptive dogma, but that no more precludes scientific descriptive economics than the existence of nonscientific dogma about the origin of the universe makes it impossible for scientific cosmology to exist.
- nickbauman 9y agoThere are Nobel laureates who work down the hall from each other that do not agree on the meaning of the terms "asset bubble" or "market failure", or arguably even "debt" for starters. I find it hard to imagine a "descriptive economic theory" without relatively unshakably agreed upon definitions of these terms.