Mainstream economics is one of the most important multipliers of the statist intellectual status quo.
Millions of young people are trained by economists to submerge themselves in a sub-culture of unthinking imitation of academic rituals that only reflect the inability of economists to appreciate the genuine subject-matter of their discipline (self-generating order of a level of complexity that cannot be captured by deterministic formal models). Many of those brainwashed in that way end up as experts or people in otherwise reputable and influential positions. The teaching effect of mainstream economics is to initiate entire generations of soon-to-be dignitaries and young people with good career prospects into dogmatism and sophisticated ways of being ignorant.
Economics proper is the study of a game that generates and processes information that is not given to any single person - not to the economist either, who nevertheless pretends that that information is given (so-called data, literally "the given"), i.e. available to him.
Economics proper is precisely about that which the economist (or anyone else) cannot know, and how we can nevertheless make most advantageously use of that information - by adhering to certain, non-arbitrary rules that keep a game going that is capable of gathering and fruitfully applying knowledge which is available only as the game's outcome but not as concentrated cognition in any single mind.
Economics proper is the study of decentralised knowledge, i.e. knowledge that by its nature is dispersed, fragmented amongst many subjects and to that extent not available to any agent/receptacle of centralised knowledge, be it a genius, the leadership of a party, an emperor, or the 1 000 best economists of the world.
Economics proper is about special forms of generating and using knowledge in a self-organising order that has emerged without human authorship and makes us the better oriented in our environment and the better off materially because it achieves what human authorship is incapable of. The economic game enacted in free markets (i.e. under conditions created and protected by the rule of law) is an extension of our very limited intellectual capabilities, and in that capacity a typical representative of the institutions of civilisation, which make us more successful, peaceful and wealthy than instinct and reason alone could ever accomplish.
Modern economics is an inferiority complex turned into utter presumptuousness.
The social sciences have a different, far more intricate subject-matter compared to the natural sciences, who successfully confine themselves to modeling those phenomena that can be well captured by a few variables. Economists do not understand this, distorting their task by trying to emulate the scientific ideal of the 19th century as represented by classical physics, especially mechanics.
What counts as and indeed is "exact" (science) in physics is a misguided ideal for the social scientist. The run-of-the-mill economist can think of economic issues only to the extent that they are tractable by contextuallly misplaced quantitative/formal models that the subculture of economics is habituated to.
Having abandoned his true subject, the economist needs to borrow the dignity of other sciences (mathematics, statistics, applied natural sciences) to hide the emptiness and vulnerability of a discipline that has gone totally astray. Economic issues not covered within the purview of the economists' (much advertised though often in fact rather restricted) mathematical skills cannot be of his concern.
The enemies of liberty depend vitally on ignorance and illusions - their important ally, the mainstream economist, is just another case in point.
In a comment on this blog post, Gary Blumsohn writes:
* In 1st year macro, every week we were shown a mathematical model, went through the math, and were shown the conclusions, with no thought to whether any of this made sense or had anything to do with the economy. After a while, I could hold back no longer, and said what I thought. The prof had little interest in debating the issue, and a fellow student who was sympathetic to my views pointed out that almost all the students regarded my outburst as a negative externality, interfering with their attempts to understand the math.
* When it came time to recruit a dissertation committee, I discussed my topic with one prospective committee member, with the blunt message that I didn’t intend to do any formal modeling in the dissertation. He, equally bluntly, told me that without either formal modeling or some econometrics, he wouldn’t sign off on a Ph.D. Amazing criteria: they completely rule out dissertation topics in huge areas of economics. Needless to say, I kept him off my committee.
But the methodological fascists won – I fled economics as soon as I finished the Ph.D. In what I regard as a repudiation of those who assume that any reputable economist would choose not to use math only because he can’t do math, I am happily ensconced in a career as an actuary, where I use math when it makes sense, and avoid it when it doesn’t.
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