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Economics has overdeveloped tools for reasoning based on price information in a "free" market of "rational" agents, and underdeveloped tools for actually valuin
by ssivark 8y ago
Economics has overdeveloped tools for reasoning based on price information in a "free" market of "rational" agents, and underdeveloped tools for actually valuing resources from first principles (because predicting the future, of a system involving agents, is really really hard). The former corresponds to your first axis ("how much you want it") and the latter to the second axis ("how much it costs the world to let you have it"). That's why, when facing any hard problem, the economics solution is to assume that markets will figure it out i.e. the two axis are equivalent, or that the first axis is the one we ought to work with, when making decisions (Further, whether the two should be conflated is actually a political decision, which is ignored in this sly exchange!)
The challenge is that real interactions are very different from a free market, and human agents are far from rational (for any operational meaning of rational that isn't tautological), unless in very narrow settings.
Economics doesn't have an answer to that, which is understandable, because it is a hard problem. The annoying things is when people pretend that there is nothing missing, and that everything is fine and dandy with economic metrics and tools. (EDIT: Economics is nowhere close to the physical sciences in its level of empirical rigor. Comments implicitly comparing economics to the sciences only serve as proofs illustrating my previous sentence.)
- chimeracoder 8y ago> Economics has overdeveloped tools for reasoning based on price information in a "free" market of "rational" agents, and underdeveloped tools for actually valuing resources from first principles. The former corresponds to your first axis ("how much you want it") and the latter to the second axis ("how much it costs the world to let you have it"). That's why, when facing any hard problem, the economics solution is to assume that markets will figure it out i.e. the two axis are equivalent. (Further, whether the two should be conflated is actually a political decision, which is ignored in this sly exchange!) This is not true at all. There is no conflation between "how much you want it" and "how much it costs the world to let you have it". Even the models taught in introductory undergraduate courses on economics are capable of addressing the "problems" you're describing.
- pc86 8y agoIt's almost as if the person commenting has no economic education whatsoever.
- chimeracoder 8y ago> It's almost as if the person commenting has no economic education whatsoever. Unfortunately, this is par for the course for HN comment threads about economics and economic policy. As someone who does have a degree in economics, it's as frustrating as sitting and listening to someone talk about why chemistry is broken because the Bohr model is incomplete and electrons don't inhabit shells.
- hndamien 8y agoArguing from a point of authority doesn't help enlighten anybody. I have a degree in economics too, it doesn't elucidate anything for a reader or make my arguments any more correct. Your logical fallacy is here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
- mike10010100 8y agoThen why not enunciate your argument and have a productive conversation instead of relying on logical fallacies?
- ace_of_spades 8y agoCare to elaborate for the unenlighted? Constructive discussion can actually help to educate people :)