Economics Isn’t Science or Literature … Economists use many of the same tools as scientists and engineers — matrix algebra, multiple regression, control theory. But they don’t use them in the same way. In economics — especially macroeconomics — the goal is often to persuade other people of your point of view. As Federal Reserve economist Kartik Athreya writes in his 2013 book “Big Ideas in Macroeconomics”: My view is that a part of what we do is “organized storytelling, in which we use extremely systematic tools of data analysis and reasoning, sometimes along with more extra-economic means, to persuade others of the usefulness of our assumptions and, hence, of our conclusions…This is perhaps not how one might describe “hard sciences[.]” – Bloomberg Editorial
Dominant Social Theme: Even though economists don’t really know anything and can’t, it’s still a swell science.
Free-Market Analysis: Bloomberg’s Noah Smith is back with an editorial explaining that even though economics isn’t a science, it’s still a swell “culture.”
What’s funny about this article is that Smith’s admission as to what economics really is corresponds entirely to the points that Austrian economists have made regarding economics: It’s not a science and not especially predictive.
Of course, Mr. Smith would not mention Austrian, free-market economics in his current column, as he doesn’t like Austrian economics.
This post was published at The Daily Bell on August 28, 2014.
Follow on Twitter
Recent Comments