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Economics is about taking political arguments and assigning them to a clergy so that the people can't touch them. Economists relegate politics of the economy to

Economics is about taking political arguments and assigning them to a clergy so that the people can't touch them. Economists relegate politics of the economy to a special class that is easy to control. They serve certain power structures. They obfuscate this power backed decision making with math.

primroot 7y ago
A country implements certain policies and after some time effects are seen. Conclusion? It depends. Do the like economists like the policy, yes or no? Have things gone well or bad? 1. No. Bad. Things went bad because country did not do as economists said. 2. Yes. Bad. Things went bad because country did not deal with past policies that economists don't like. 3. No. Good. Things went well because of past policies economists do like. 4. No. Bad. Things went bad because country did not listen to the economists. Economists are always right. There's always enough of the ideal and the non ideal going on to establish the desired causality, and negligible chance of exact recurrence. I only take economists seriously when they talk densely and fluently about history and its complexities. I recommend Mark Blyth.
- devoply 7y ago
  > Economists are always right. There's always enough of the ideal and the non ideal going on to establish the desired causality, and negligible chance of exact recurrence. Type 2 chaotic system. Economists never know wtf they are talking about. They are speaking about history. You can not make conclusions from history. The more dense your non-sense, the easier it is to bullshit. You have a pool of economists, you are a rich person or you are a political party that subscribes to certain political myths. From the pool you find the guy that says what you want to hear, they become your champion. The news papers that support you start talking about them. The universities that they grew from receive more funding from you, where you have various schools. You start talking about their theories and how they make perfect sense. You use that to push your political objectives and get policies passed. Things get fucked. Those policies fall out of favour, but not before making millions if not billions for certain people who pushed those. Wait a decade, find a new economist, rinse and repeat.
taffer 7y ago
I have no idea how to argue against this nonsense. Basically, these are the same anti-scientific arguments that climate sceptics put forward against climate science or anti-vaxers against medicine. One simply claims that a science is in reality a religion and that it serves only to support unpopular policies such as tax increases, interest rate cuts or to increase the profits of the pharmaceutical industry.
- devoply 7y ago
  Well go read the book and argue against that, that's good enough for me. Economics is not a science, economics uses science. The alternative to economics is politics where political decisions like austerity are not wrapped up in economics and pushed hook line and sinker. Where you are have to argue for policies politically rather than just pushing them because leading economist nobel prize winner said so.
  - taffer 7y ago
    > Economics is not a science, economics uses science. So you decide what is science and what isn't? What is your model of what a science is? As long as you can't answer that, the only thing unscientific is your comment. > The alternative to economics is politics where political decisions like austerity are not wrapped up in economics and pushed hook line and sinker. You can use any science to wrap up political decisions. Also, economics is not a normative science like philosophy. Everything economics does is to say: "According to model M, if you do X in situation Y, then Z happens". If politicians turn it into austerity measures or deficit spending, then that' s politics, not economics. > because leading economist nobel prize winner said so. Be more specific. Who said what?
    - devoply 7y ago
      > So you decide what is science and what isn't? What is your model of what a science is? As long as you can't answer that, the only thing unscientific is your comment. 1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences. Please list a set of economic truths. Any set will be good enough as long as it can make reliable predictions that can be tested in the real world. > You can use any science to wrap up political decisions. You could, but the point is not to. Or if you want to then make sure that the science is predictive. > Be more specific. Who said what? When you are talking about the general facts that economics is often prescriptive but at the same time can be shown to be unpredictive which proves that it is not fit for this task. Yet economists and their political allies continue to argue that it is. Maybe it's better than simply political arguments and maybe the justification for supporting the orthodoxy is in line with that. That you're scared of the political outcome and so economics is a safer option.
tomrod 7y ago
Economist here! I missed the vizier training classes though. That's unfortunate -- being able to intentionally shape world events would really satisfy the ego. /s Truth be told, there is a spectrum of political leanings among economists akin to the spectrum of political leanings among developers. We're not a superclass of reptilian ubermensch and uberfrauen able to worm our ways into the minds of the powerful. Possibly the main missing point is that the book appears to be uninformed that there are many economic scholars researching inequality, race[1], feminism[2], environmentalism[3], and other progressive areas[4]. Really, there is a broad set of things considered "economics" and I encourage folks to check it out[5]. Remember that all models are wrong, but some are useful. The article's mention of Oi's work highlights this, but the book's takeaway is weird. Rather than a justifiable conclusion of "economists are learning the same as the rest of the world how to manage their leaky abstractions" the book instead treats the reader to FUD. [1] http://www.columbia.edu/~bo2/bookflyer2015.pdf http://www.columbia.edu/~bo2/bookflyer2015.pdf [2] http://www.feministeconomics.org/ http://www.feministeconomics.org/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_religion [5] https://www.aeaweb.org/jel/guide/jel.php https://www.aeaweb.org/jel/guide/jel.php
- specialist 7y ago
  Contrarian is probably referring to the Rasputin like celebrity pundit economists who are funded and promoted by undeclared vested interests. Like the realtors backing Friedman (or was it Hayek?) and those Freakonomics guys. I'm TOTALLY FINE with lobbying, patronage, sponsorship, and bias. More than fine. If its declared. But even "serious economists" like you have to admit there's personalities claiming expertise you know they lack. The whole Gell-Mann Amnesia thing. Those times someone on TV spews some nonsense that makes you want to kick a puppy in outrage.
  - tomrod 7y ago
    Agreed, idiot-punditry is alive and well in all areas of specialized domain knowledge. Charlatans make me want to kick things in outrage as well.

primroot 7y ago

A country implements certain policies and after some time effects are seen. Conclusion? It depends. Do the like economists like the policy, yes or no? Have things gone well or bad? 1. No. Bad. Things went bad because country did not do as economists said. 2. Yes. Bad. Things went bad because country did not deal with past policies that economists don't like. 3. No. Good. Things went well because of past policies economists do like. 4. No. Bad. Things went bad because country did not listen to the economists. Economists are always right. There's always enough of the ideal and the non ideal going on to establish the desired causality, and negligible chance of exact recurrence. I only take economists seriously when they talk densely and fluently about history and its complexities. I recommend Mark Blyth.

devoply 7y ago
> Economists are always right. There's always enough of the ideal and the non ideal going on to establish the desired causality, and negligible chance of exact recurrence. Type 2 chaotic system. Economists never know wtf they are talking about. They are speaking about history. You can not make conclusions from history. The more dense your non-sense, the easier it is to bullshit. You have a pool of economists, you are a rich person or you are a political party that subscribes to certain political myths. From the pool you find the guy that says what you want to hear, they become your champion. The news papers that support you start talking about them. The universities that they grew from receive more funding from you, where you have various schools. You start talking about their theories and how they make perfect sense. You use that to push your political objectives and get policies passed. Things get fucked. Those policies fall out of favour, but not before making millions if not billions for certain people who pushed those. Wait a decade, find a new economist, rinse and repeat.

taffer 7y ago

I have no idea how to argue against this nonsense. Basically, these are the same anti-scientific arguments that climate sceptics put forward against climate science or anti-vaxers against medicine. One simply claims that a science is in reality a religion and that it serves only to support unpopular policies such as tax increases, interest rate cuts or to increase the profits of the pharmaceutical industry.

devoply 7y ago
Well go read the book and argue against that, that's good enough for me. Economics is not a science, economics uses science. The alternative to economics is politics where political decisions like austerity are not wrapped up in economics and pushed hook line and sinker. Where you are have to argue for policies politically rather than just pushing them because leading economist nobel prize winner said so.
- taffer 7y ago
  > Economics is not a science, economics uses science. So you decide what is science and what isn't? What is your model of what a science is? As long as you can't answer that, the only thing unscientific is your comment. > The alternative to economics is politics where political decisions like austerity are not wrapped up in economics and pushed hook line and sinker. You can use any science to wrap up political decisions. Also, economics is not a normative science like philosophy. Everything economics does is to say: "According to model M, if you do X in situation Y, then Z happens". If politicians turn it into austerity measures or deficit spending, then that' s politics, not economics. > because leading economist nobel prize winner said so. Be more specific. Who said what?
  - devoply 7y ago
    > So you decide what is science and what isn't? What is your model of what a science is? As long as you can't answer that, the only thing unscientific is your comment. 1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences. Please list a set of economic truths. Any set will be good enough as long as it can make reliable predictions that can be tested in the real world. > You can use any science to wrap up political decisions. You could, but the point is not to. Or if you want to then make sure that the science is predictive. > Be more specific. Who said what? When you are talking about the general facts that economics is often prescriptive but at the same time can be shown to be unpredictive which proves that it is not fit for this task. Yet economists and their political allies continue to argue that it is. Maybe it's better than simply political arguments and maybe the justification for supporting the orthodoxy is in line with that. That you're scared of the political outcome and so economics is a safer option.

tomrod 7y ago

Economist here! I missed the vizier training classes though. That's unfortunate -- being able to intentionally shape world events would really satisfy the ego. /s Truth be told, there is a spectrum of political leanings among economists akin to the spectrum of political leanings among developers. We're not a superclass of reptilian ubermensch and uberfrauen able to worm our ways into the minds of the powerful. Possibly the main missing point is that the book appears to be uninformed that there are many economic scholars researching inequality, race[1], feminism[2], environmentalism[3], and other progressive areas[4]. Really, there is a broad set of things considered "economics" and I encourage folks to check it out[5]. Remember that all models are wrong, but some are useful. The article's mention of Oi's work highlights this, but the book's takeaway is weird. Rather than a justifiable conclusion of "economists are learning the same as the rest of the world how to manage their leaky abstractions" the book instead treats the reader to FUD. [1] http://www.columbia.edu/~bo2/bookflyer2015.pdf http://www.columbia.edu/~bo2/bookflyer2015.pdf [2] http://www.feministeconomics.org/ http://www.feministeconomics.org/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_religion [5] https://www.aeaweb.org/jel/guide/jel.php https://www.aeaweb.org/jel/guide/jel.php

specialist 7y ago
Contrarian is probably referring to the Rasputin like celebrity pundit economists who are funded and promoted by undeclared vested interests. Like the realtors backing Friedman (or was it Hayek?) and those Freakonomics guys. I'm TOTALLY FINE with lobbying, patronage, sponsorship, and bias. More than fine. If its declared. But even "serious economists" like you have to admit there's personalities claiming expertise you know they lack. The whole Gell-Mann Amnesia thing. Those times someone on TV spews some nonsense that makes you want to kick a puppy in outrage.
- tomrod 7y ago
  Agreed, idiot-punditry is alive and well in all areas of specialized domain knowledge. Charlatans make me want to kick things in outrage as well.