This is like claiming that physicists are "wrong" because they spend time thinking about a frictionless vacuum[0]. > (Actually, classical economics does, in th

This is like claiming that physicists are "wrong" because they spend time thinking about a frictionless vacuum[0]. > (Actually, classical economics does, in the sense that markets follow a price-demand curve rather than a wiggle as seen experimentally.) That's the difference between the limitations of an idealized model and the limitations of experimental process. That doesn't mean that either one is "wrong", any more than it would in the physical sciences. > Obviously you don’t do that when you go shopping. Correct - classical economics describes the behavior of rational actors with perfect and symmetric information. In this case, there are significant, non-zero costs to obtaining perfect information. That doesn't mean that the principles behind classical economics are false, were those assumptions to hold. And it doesn't mean that the model is useless even absent those assumptions. Just as physicists can reason about frictionless vacuums and use that to inform their understandings of the real world (with friction and air), economists can reason about perfectly rational actors with perfect and symmetric information, and use that to inform their understandings of the real world (with possibly irrational actors and asymmetric and/or imperfect information). [0] https://xkcd.com/669/ https://xkcd.com/669/