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> Economics is not a science. Yes it is. Economics is a social science, like psychology and archaeology. The empirical precision of physics and chemistry are n

by dsacco 9y ago

> Economics is not a science. Yes it is. Economics is a social science, like psychology and archaeology. The empirical precision of physics and chemistry are not required for a discipline to be scientific; standards of rigor and reproducibility in methodology are. Moreover there is a significant amount of rigor in much of economics, despite widespread memes that the entire discipline is wanton fluff. That aside, we encounter flaws and unresolved problems in many theories in every scientific field of study. A coherent argument can be posited that denying the supremacy of capitalism as a broad, categorical model is analogous to denying that the Earth is round. I don't necessarily endorse this view, but there is enough evidence to construct a sane backing for that position. It's not absurd, even if it's not absolutely correct. We need not understand everything about gravity or resolve all issues pertinent to its existence to more or less agree on the main points. Similarly, for specific definitions of social stability, productivity and happiness, capitalism is demonstably superlative given the implementation track record.

kobeya 9y ago
> supremacy of capitalism Efficacy is more the word I would have gone for, compared against other systems we have historical evidence for.
- EGreg 9y ago
  Would you call the system on which Open Source Software and Free Software operates capitalism? How about Science? How about Wikipedia? How about languages, is someone paying someone for using a word? Because these systems have led to a lot more advancement, when people can collaborate and add to a growing snowball of work. Wikipedia beat Britannica. Linux + BSD beat Windows. WebKit beat IE. Apache and NGinX beat IIS. Most languages are open source. And so on. And yet in drugs we still have the patent system. And the superbugs are back because we run out of antibiotics. And the USA which has the most patents also pays the most per capita for the same drugs. Who wins from these monopolies? And before you say that Intellectual Property shouldn't be considered property, throwing other anarcho-capitalists under the bus, consider this: if people shouldn't own ideas, should people be able to own large bodies of air, water, land, etc. that they personally will never use? Will that make them more or less likely to become polluted for example?" The same John Locke who popularized the idea of homesteading or "mixing one's labor with the land" as anarcho-capitalists' favorite way to theoretically paper over acquision of natural resources in their theory also emphatically said that a man shouldn't own too much land. Yet that's what Capitalism is. At its core it is about granting PROPERTY to private entities and enforcing it. PROPERTY IS A MONOPOLY RIGHT TO EXCLUDE OTHERS FROM THE USE OF A RESOURCE. And pure unfettered Capitalism recognizes no limits on who can own what, as long as the what isn't other people.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    Capitalism is a solution for allocating scarce resources. None of your other examples are solutions to that specific problem. Apples to oranges...
    - EGreg 9y ago
      Oh really. Water in lakes is not a scarce resource for example? Look at what happened at Lake Baikal the largest freshwater lake in the world, and tell me how capitalism improved the use of that resource.
RealityNow 9y ago
Call it what you want, but it is most definitely not even close to on the same level of rigor as a hard science like physics or chemistry. Nor can it ever be even comparable to a field like psychology because economics is inherently political. The commenter said that capitalism is unequivocally the best system, and to say otherwise is like denying that the earth is flat. Under what metrics is capitalism the best? Unless we can all agree on the exact same set of metrics with the exact same prioritization, then the question of whether or not capitalism is the best system is an inherently political question. The commenter mentioned maximizing GDP (as would most economists). GDP is a heavily flawed metric that gets way more attention than it should. Apart from broken window fallacy and such, it says nothing about distribution of wealth, living conditions, happiness, effect on environment, non-monetary output (eg. open source software), technological advancement, social mobility, etc. It would be impossible to reduce any of these into a single meaningful metric. The "rigor" you speak of in its models are comically oversimplified to the point where they're often completely divorced from reality and useless. One only needs to look at the atrocious track record of economists to see the uselessness of them. It's called the "dismal science" for a reason.
- tptacek 9y ago
  That's not why it's called "the dismal science". You sre a very simple Google query away from learning the origin of that term. Your argument about the empirical validity of economic models would be more persuasive if you could cite some of those models that are in common use in the profession, and formulate an argument about how they oversimplify reality.
  - RealityNow 9y ago
    Well I already explained why GDP, the core metric economists fixate on, is flawed and incomplete. Unemployment rate as well is incomplete in that it doesn't account for those who drop out of the labor force (not to mention it says nothing of job quality or wages). I think at this point the burden of proof is on economists to justify their profession. They completely failed to foresee the recent financial crisis, with the so-called "Great Moderation" and economists like Ben Bernanke saying the depression problem has been solved. * Theory of competitive advantage is flawed and doesn't hold up to reality. Free trade is not unequivocally good. I wrote about it in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15159057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15159057 , but I'm basically parroting economist Ha Joon Chang who wrote multiple books about this * The assumption of individuals being rational and utility-maximizing is false (eg. charity, stock market). * Efficient market hypothesis. See any financial asset bubble. * Austerity economics. The severity of the Great Depression was exacerbated by the government's austerity response. Yet here we are 80 years later demanding austerity from Greece and such. * Money multiplier http://positivemoney.org/how-money-works/advanced/the-money-multiplier-and-other-myths-about-banking/ http://positivemoney.org/how-money-works/advanced/the-money-... * Phillips Curve Steve Keen wrote a book called "Debunking Economics" that explains theoretical flaws in the basic supply/demand curves that are the foundation of economics, though I'll admit I didn't read the book. Ultimately though, neoclassical economics is just too damn oversimplified to result in many meaningful actionable policy takeaways. It's too constrained by its owned rigid model of how economies are supposed to work, and thus too free market dependent and status-quo preserving.

by dsacco 9y ago

kobeya 9y ago

> supremacy of capitalism Efficacy is more the word I would have gone for, compared against other systems we have historical evidence for.

EGreg 9y ago
Would you call the system on which Open Source Software and Free Software operates capitalism? How about Science? How about Wikipedia? How about languages, is someone paying someone for using a word? Because these systems have led to a lot more advancement, when people can collaborate and add to a growing snowball of work. Wikipedia beat Britannica. Linux + BSD beat Windows. WebKit beat IE. Apache and NGinX beat IIS. Most languages are open source. And so on. And yet in drugs we still have the patent system. And the superbugs are back because we run out of antibiotics. And the USA which has the most patents also pays the most per capita for the same drugs. Who wins from these monopolies? And before you say that Intellectual Property shouldn't be considered property, throwing other anarcho-capitalists under the bus, consider this: if people shouldn't own ideas, should people be able to own large bodies of air, water, land, etc. that they personally will never use? Will that make them more or less likely to become polluted for example?" The same John Locke who popularized the idea of homesteading or "mixing one's labor with the land" as anarcho-capitalists' favorite way to theoretically paper over acquision of natural resources in their theory also emphatically said that a man shouldn't own too much land. Yet that's what Capitalism is. At its core it is about granting PROPERTY to private entities and enforcing it. PROPERTY IS A MONOPOLY RIGHT TO EXCLUDE OTHERS FROM THE USE OF A RESOURCE. And pure unfettered Capitalism recognizes no limits on who can own what, as long as the what isn't other people.
- kobeya 9y ago
  Capitalism is a solution for allocating scarce resources. None of your other examples are solutions to that specific problem. Apples to oranges...
  - EGreg 9y ago
    Oh really. Water in lakes is not a scarce resource for example? Look at what happened at Lake Baikal the largest freshwater lake in the world, and tell me how capitalism improved the use of that resource.

RealityNow 9y ago

Call it what you want, but it is most definitely not even close to on the same level of rigor as a hard science like physics or chemistry. Nor can it ever be even comparable to a field like psychology because economics is inherently political. The commenter said that capitalism is unequivocally the best system, and to say otherwise is like denying that the earth is flat. Under what metrics is capitalism the best? Unless we can all agree on the exact same set of metrics with the exact same prioritization, then the question of whether or not capitalism is the best system is an inherently political question. The commenter mentioned maximizing GDP (as would most economists). GDP is a heavily flawed metric that gets way more attention than it should. Apart from broken window fallacy and such, it says nothing about distribution of wealth, living conditions, happiness, effect on environment, non-monetary output (eg. open source software), technological advancement, social mobility, etc. It would be impossible to reduce any of these into a single meaningful metric. The "rigor" you speak of in its models are comically oversimplified to the point where they're often completely divorced from reality and useless. One only needs to look at the atrocious track record of economists to see the uselessness of them. It's called the "dismal science" for a reason.

tptacek 9y ago
That's not why it's called "the dismal science". You sre a very simple Google query away from learning the origin of that term. Your argument about the empirical validity of economic models would be more persuasive if you could cite some of those models that are in common use in the profession, and formulate an argument about how they oversimplify reality.
- RealityNow 9y ago
  Well I already explained why GDP, the core metric economists fixate on, is flawed and incomplete. Unemployment rate as well is incomplete in that it doesn't account for those who drop out of the labor force (not to mention it says nothing of job quality or wages). I think at this point the burden of proof is on economists to justify their profession. They completely failed to foresee the recent financial crisis, with the so-called "Great Moderation" and economists like Ben Bernanke saying the depression problem has been solved. * Theory of competitive advantage is flawed and doesn't hold up to reality. Free trade is not unequivocally good. I wrote about it in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15159057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15159057 , but I'm basically parroting economist Ha Joon Chang who wrote multiple books about this * The assumption of individuals being rational and utility-maximizing is false (eg. charity, stock market). * Efficient market hypothesis. See any financial asset bubble. * Austerity economics. The severity of the Great Depression was exacerbated by the government's austerity response. Yet here we are 80 years later demanding austerity from Greece and such. * Money multiplier http://positivemoney.org/how-money-works/advanced/the-money-multiplier-and-other-myths-about-banking/ http://positivemoney.org/how-money-works/advanced/the-money-... * Phillips Curve Steve Keen wrote a book called "Debunking Economics" that explains theoretical flaws in the basic supply/demand curves that are the foundation of economics, though I'll admit I didn't read the book. Ultimately though, neoclassical economics is just too damn oversimplified to result in many meaningful actionable policy takeaways. It's too constrained by its owned rigid model of how economies are supposed to work, and thus too free market dependent and status-quo preserving.