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> Economics, as the expression of human beings exchanging with each other, accepts neither. I will never understand how adults can believe that things like eco
by djrobstep 8y ago
> Economics, as the expression of human beings exchanging with each other, accepts neither.
I will never understand how adults can believe that things like economics, journalism, central banking, and (especially) the US constitution can be non-political.
- RobertoG 8y agoBecause that idea (about economics) has been heavily, and successfully, pushed by interested parties: 'The economy' and 'the market' are sacred things that are disconnected from the dirty world, and work perfectly in their own if you don't bother them. No need for 'political economy' anymore, only 'economics'.
- conanbatt 8y agoGotta answer that last sentence. Free market advocates are the exact opposite of disconnected with the dirty world: they advocate for allowing the dirtyness of reality sort itself out, without a neat central order. The most significant advocate for free markets, Milton Friedman, literally wrote the book on the application of Positive Economics: seeing things how they really are, use empiric data, make falsifiable predictions, etc. Free markets are pro-reality, pro-dirty world.
- RobertoG 8y agoWell, if you start with the idea that markets exist in the void, you are certainly avoiding the dirty world. For instance: assuming that property rights exist outside a political framework or power structures.
- conanbatt 8y agoThey don't exist in "the void". Property rights are fundamental to the free market ideology, as well as courts, police and military. It's the foundations of liberalism, with Locke, Adam Smith, etc. I reiterate that free market ideology is positive, while government intervention ideology is more normative: it says how things should be and tries to make it so. The best case of this has been obviously Communism and Fascism: they said this is best, and organized top to bottom how things should be, and ignored any evidence of the contrary.
- djrobstep 8y agoWhat is it that motivates you to be a booklicker for the rich?
- conanbatt 8y agoI am surprised on people that believe politics shape reality, as if a political will could bend laws of nature.
- djrobstep 8y agoIf you think economics is about "laws of nature", then you have a lot to learn about economics.