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I know Austrians make a lot of noise about “not being empirical” (to their detriment), but I think that’s a bit misinterpreted, and I get where they’re coming f

I know Austrians make a lot of noise about “not being empirical” (to their detriment), but I think that’s a bit misinterpreted, and I get where they’re coming from. I get not wanting to try to parse out a theory from a stream of data complex enough to justify nearly any initial hypothesis. You can still test whether core ideas on the Austrian side fit the facts via historical analysis and looking at how things respond to fed decisions/do at least a rough qualitative empirical analysis. I think the business cycle is an Austrian idea that has empirical evidence behind it at this point, for example. My gut impression of economics from the outside is similar to yours, though, even though I think Austrians seem to have mostly the right core theory. Are there any economic schools you or anyone else know of or forums where people discuss these types of things from a less ideological lens? I ran across this video a while ago by Scott Kominers, was very inspired by the example given and the lucidity of the explanation of what was going on/what helped improve things. https://youtu.be/JCKwkuzROzs https://youtu.be/JCKwkuzROzs . Do you think economics is just too broad a field to avoid ideological schools that generalize/applied economics is better? Part of why I haven’t dug into theory more complicated than basic Austrian ideas is it feels kind of self referential and a waste of time. Applied economics seems like it might be different/an area where good rules and bad rules become evident, but idk. Even if macro economics is ideological and arrogant and hand wavy, still curious about different arguments and counter arguments between schools

quadrangle 5y ago
I'm no expert, I just have the impression that the field of economics professionally is basically a lost cause, at least until generational turn-over if even that. Anything interesting has to engage with real facts like energy consumption, pollution, harvesting of raw materials, and somehow acknowledge the huge portion of human activities that are not measured in money. I don't know of anyone within economics who really does this, but if they exist, I am certain they are a pariah in the field, treated with contempt if even acknowledged by the rest of the folks. I think there's something like "environmental economics" but I'm not sure the quality of it. I haven't looked in depth, but https://doughnuteconomics.org https://doughnuteconomics.org seems good, I just have the impression that it's enough work to just get people to even accept the basic premise, so there's not yet the depth of study that would get into the deep complexities, though I see no reason it couldn't get there. On studying real humans as economic actors (rather than homo economicus), the best might be "behavioral economics" which is psychology, empirical, interested in real science (but arguably too behaviorist and not cognitive enough). I think they mostly only grapple with microeconomics and not macro. (I have the impression that the field of economics today, Austrians included, just have this say-so assertion that there is no macroeconomics beyond being just the sum of microeconomic patterns, and this leads to them refusing to study things on a macro level). I have a friend who went to Japan to do economics grad-school work with some professor he thought was onto some better view, but it turned out that guy was a pariah of course who had no respect from colleagues, and the whole thing was a dead-end, and he eventually just gave up on economics having any hope as a field. FWIW, I'm skeptical about aspects of what Marxists say often, but there's a good portion at least of concepts Marx talked about that are pretty darn sensible, and they are basically verboten because of the political biases in the field. When some topics that are intellectually sound enough are barred from discussion for political reasons, then it's just not an intellectually honest field of study. I've heard incidentally that Marx himself was anti-Marxist. There's a lot of confusion that gets wrapped up in associations people have with economic concepts versus the assertions of dogmatic political activists. I do respect Yanis Varoufakis (he calls himself an "erratic Marxist" to emphasize a non-dogmatic view that includes and respects ideas from Marx). If I have to pick one reference to suggest, I'd go with him at this point. If anyone else has a good reference that really engages with these things, I'm curious too
- didericis 5y ago
  Yanis Varoufakis sounds interesting. Will check him out, thanks. Doesn’t align with my sensibilities at all/am generally allergic to anything described as Marxist, but the way you describe him and the misconceptions sounds worth looking into/I should challenge myself. I view Marx as more of a social analyst and a historian rather than an economist/a lot of what I understand of what he advocated for economically seems extremely misguided, even if his social and historical analysis had merits. But I’m open to a deeper look and a more modern take.
  - quadrangle 5y ago
    Some short perspectives, if simplistic: Marx was basically just inspired by French Revolution idea of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" and dismayed that it didn't work out. He came to some real insights about why capitalism doesn't achieve that vision. He changed his views over time and wrote strongly about cases where he was wrong. He didn't want anyone to idolize him in some static way or be "Marxist". He actually wasn't prescriptive, he didn't say what to do or how to structure a socialist society. He mostly diagnosed problem patterns in capitalism without proposing what the alternatives should be. Or so I've heard, none of this is my original insights or understanding. Of people who are "Marxists" by self-description, some have been dangerous and destructive, but there are various versions and they often abhor each other. The worst of them are just as self-righteous as the worst of the Austrians. FWIW, I think the Austrian models almost all have some truth in them. The problem is how they treat them as complete and dogmatic. They think they have it all figured out, and so they just take any situation and insist that their simplistic models are all there is to it. As a snarky critique, I think the Austrians just believe Wikipedia doesn't exist — or maybe they think it exists precisely because of the lack of government intrusion or something. They just have no insight, no model, no perspective of value on how it is that Wikipedia does exist. They are more interested in their models than in human beings (well, to be fair, I think that's similar for mainstream economists too).
    - int_19h 5y ago
      While we're at it, there's a persistent belief that all socialist (in the proper sense of the word) left is Marxist. This is wrong - not even all statist socialists are Marxist, and the vast majority of libertarian ones are not, although they may subscribe to specific notions (like LTV).

quadrangle 5y ago

I'm no expert, I just have the impression that the field of economics professionally is basically a lost cause, at least until generational turn-over if even that. Anything interesting has to engage with real facts like energy consumption, pollution, harvesting of raw materials, and somehow acknowledge the huge portion of human activities that are not measured in money. I don't know of anyone within economics who really does this, but if they exist, I am certain they are a pariah in the field, treated with contempt if even acknowledged by the rest of the folks. I think there's something like "environmental economics" but I'm not sure the quality of it. I haven't looked in depth, but https://doughnuteconomics.org https://doughnuteconomics.org seems good, I just have the impression that it's enough work to just get people to even accept the basic premise, so there's not yet the depth of study that would get into the deep complexities, though I see no reason it couldn't get there. On studying real humans as economic actors (rather than homo economicus), the best might be "behavioral economics" which is psychology, empirical, interested in real science (but arguably too behaviorist and not cognitive enough). I think they mostly only grapple with microeconomics and not macro. (I have the impression that the field of economics today, Austrians included, just have this say-so assertion that there is no macroeconomics beyond being just the sum of microeconomic patterns, and this leads to them refusing to study things on a macro level). I have a friend who went to Japan to do economics grad-school work with some professor he thought was onto some better view, but it turned out that guy was a pariah of course who had no respect from colleagues, and the whole thing was a dead-end, and he eventually just gave up on economics having any hope as a field. FWIW, I'm skeptical about aspects of what Marxists say often, but there's a good portion at least of concepts Marx talked about that are pretty darn sensible, and they are basically verboten because of the political biases in the field. When some topics that are intellectually sound enough are barred from discussion for political reasons, then it's just not an intellectually honest field of study. I've heard incidentally that Marx himself was anti-Marxist. There's a lot of confusion that gets wrapped up in associations people have with economic concepts versus the assertions of dogmatic political activists. I do respect Yanis Varoufakis (he calls himself an "erratic Marxist" to emphasize a non-dogmatic view that includes and respects ideas from Marx). If I have to pick one reference to suggest, I'd go with him at this point. If anyone else has a good reference that really engages with these things, I'm curious too

didericis 5y ago
Yanis Varoufakis sounds interesting. Will check him out, thanks. Doesn’t align with my sensibilities at all/am generally allergic to anything described as Marxist, but the way you describe him and the misconceptions sounds worth looking into/I should challenge myself. I view Marx as more of a social analyst and a historian rather than an economist/a lot of what I understand of what he advocated for economically seems extremely misguided, even if his social and historical analysis had merits. But I’m open to a deeper look and a more modern take.
- quadrangle 5y ago
  Some short perspectives, if simplistic: Marx was basically just inspired by French Revolution idea of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" and dismayed that it didn't work out. He came to some real insights about why capitalism doesn't achieve that vision. He changed his views over time and wrote strongly about cases where he was wrong. He didn't want anyone to idolize him in some static way or be "Marxist". He actually wasn't prescriptive, he didn't say what to do or how to structure a socialist society. He mostly diagnosed problem patterns in capitalism without proposing what the alternatives should be. Or so I've heard, none of this is my original insights or understanding. Of people who are "Marxists" by self-description, some have been dangerous and destructive, but there are various versions and they often abhor each other. The worst of them are just as self-righteous as the worst of the Austrians. FWIW, I think the Austrian models almost all have some truth in them. The problem is how they treat them as complete and dogmatic. They think they have it all figured out, and so they just take any situation and insist that their simplistic models are all there is to it. As a snarky critique, I think the Austrians just believe Wikipedia doesn't exist — or maybe they think it exists precisely because of the lack of government intrusion or something. They just have no insight, no model, no perspective of value on how it is that Wikipedia does exist. They are more interested in their models than in human beings (well, to be fair, I think that's similar for mainstream economists too).
  - int_19h 5y ago
    While we're at it, there's a persistent belief that all socialist (in the proper sense of the word) left is Marxist. This is wrong - not even all statist socialists are Marxist, and the vast majority of libertarian ones are not, although they may subscribe to specific notions (like LTV).