Philip Booth of the Institute of Economic Affairs asked me the above question during debate at the event we were both speaking at this lunchtime at the Royal Society for Arts.
I didn't have time to answer him then, so let me do so now.
No of course I don't know the difference between the objective and the subjective. Indeed, I don't recognise that there is one on almost any issue of any significance, and absolutely certainly none at all in any question relating to economics.
In economics the idea of objectivity is a myth created by pro-market economists to excuse the flaws in their assumptions which would otherwise prevent them reaching their highly subjective conclusions.
Anyone who claims to be an objective economist is, in my opinion, be definition not telling the truth.
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Ah, but what is truth… 😉
On anything important is depends upon your perspective
To pretend otherwise is not true
(And yes, the construction of that comment is deliberate – the negative can be easier to define than the positive)
that is precisely why I asked because you kept saying that I was “wrong” on matters that are entirely subjective.
Austrian economics is just an exercise in disliking humankind rather than neoliberalism’s fantasising about its rationality
this is a very odd post in other respects because, of course, the heart of Austrian economics is subjectivism.
Ah yes, in my younger days I invested rather too much time in a long-running Usenet debate about music during which I realised that objectivity is, in all meaningful senses, impossible. A plea for objectivity tends to boil down to being mainly a plea to ‘agree with what I think because I’m the one being reaosnable here’.
When I hear a plea for objectivity in a debate I see it not so much as someone admitting defeat, but rather as someone admitting that they’ve nowhere left to go. That was certainly the case with the chap who couldn’t get me to agree that Oasis’ third album was ‘objectively’ better than me smashing a clarinet against a radiator.
Which, quite obviously, it wasn’t.
Economics should desist in it’s ‘Physics Envy’, and like the earlier economists realise that it is a branch of moral philosophy as much as a technical subject.
And it is funny that the branch of economics that claims to be most objective and has been most influential has completely failed to predict or remedy the biggest economic calamity in living memory.
Too true(!).
The carving up of reality into the objective and subjective is a power play. Once you’ve made that incision anything that you can convince people is on the ‘objective’ side cannot be argued with — it simply is, ‘whether you like it or not.’ Its propagation therefore no longer requires assent; it can be taught as fact and beaten into stubborn skulls if needs be.
While it’s true that Austrian economics reacted against the scientistic and state-centric economic orthodoxy, which promoted central, ‘objective’ planning, it makes little sense to deny that Austrian economics, in many circles, has become the new orthodoxy and is treated as if it were the objective truth ‘whether you like it or not.’ For this reason it is regularly subject of such power plays that would seek to make its claims unassailable.
And this is terribly unfortunate since few scientific doctrines have ever been so thoroughly and consistently refuted by experience and kept on walking.
And that brings me to the undiminished importance of relative truth even in the absence of absolute truth (i.e. ‘objectivity’).
If your complaint, my namesake, is that Richard was implying possession of objective knowledge by saying that you are ‘wrong’ on matters subjective then I think that your objections are misplaced. Words such as right and wrong, true and false are still perfectly applicable in a world devoid of any hard and fast subjective/objective distinction. They represent not claims on correspondence to reality ‘out there’ but rather denials of reasoning and demands for evidence. Because we still have these things — reasoning and evidence — even if they can never give us ‘objectivity.’ They are devices of argumentation and are intrinsic to all scientific and political discourse.
If the ‘subjectivism’ of Austrian economics absolves it from defending the inadequacies of its own reasoning and evidence then this is a worrying thing — objectivity or no objectivity.
Thank you
Better than I could have ever put it
[…] up. Here's a post from his blog: I quote it in full just so that I cannot be accused of leaving out something important. Philip Booth of the Institute of Economic Affairs asked me the above question during debate at the […]
There is a simple answer
Subjectively I may believe the world is flat
Objectively it is not.
And the evidence would show you were wrong to the satisfaction of the vast majority
But you’re still only appraising evidence – and as your case shows – that evidence can suggest different answers as it develops
Science recognises that
Economics does not
[…] very silly article about me on the Telegraph’s blog today. Worstall’s gripe is with my claim that there is no such thing as objective truth in economics.  So let me show that there is only, as I said, subjective […]