Gideon Rachman in the FT says:
The vanity of economists needs to be challenged. Above all, their claim to scientific rigour – buttressed by models and equations – must be treated much more sceptically.
Follow the link and watch the video. He debates the issue with Martin Wolf.
Wolf pretty much damns the profession – and its mathematical models – but argues economics is usefully as long as its not pursued to its complete logical conclusions – because people are too complex to portray in the simple ways economists suggest is possible.
I think he means neoclassical economists and their absurd simplifying assumptions.
And anyone but a neoclassical economist would agree.
Strongly recommended.
One Response to “The vanity of economists”
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Mainstream economic theory in effect operates as a system of rules, procedures and assumptions that justifies elite appropriation and manipulation of the material, social and intellectual resources of society through the institutions of the formal economy: property finance and markets.
Frances Hutchinson, Mary Mellor and Wendy Olsen, The Politics of Money: towards sustainability and economic democracy, 2002
See also Steve Keen, Debunking Economics, 2001 for a comprehensive critique. The theory of perfect competition can be used to ‘prove’ that the earth is flat.