| | Or, is there just 'math?'
1+1=2
My political opinions do not influence the truth of that assertion; it is objectively true. If I try to finesse that with my plans for the future, I will likely fail.
When, as Bacon once said, we obey Nature, we have a shot at playing by its rules; we rule it only to the extent that we obey its rules.
There clearly is no conservative math and liberal math, there is only objective math. Arithmetic, calculus, algebra, set theory, logic. Nothing even remotely political about math.
Now, ask the same question about what we call 'economics.'
Is there a conservative economics and a liberal economics?
You're damn right there is. The real question is, is there any such thing as a neutral, objective economics?
No evidence whatsoever.
So when we are confronted with 'an economist' who presents himself as an expert in something called 'economics', the first question one must ask is, "Are you an expert in conservative economics or liberal economics?" Because when one is studying 'economics' one is clearly firmly planted in the field of Political Science. It might be dressed up in the lab clothing of mathematics, but again, Feynman well warned the world (well, a tiny fraction of the technological world graduating at Cal Poly in '74) against the dangers of homage to Cargo Cult Sciences. Lab coats and equations and charts and spread sheets don't make economics anything like mathematics.
As soon as Marx asserts "PRICE=COST+PROFIT" -- and Samuelson parrots him -- he is primarily asserting a political argument, not declaring an absolute fact of any kind. And when young 17 year old skulls of mush slouch in their seats, eager to please the in loca parentis "not their parents" authorities handing out both grades and social status, they recognize something that looks like what they see in math class and -mistakenly- attribute to it the same regard as some mathematical 'truth.'
The slight of hand in writing down such an equation is that it stealths the political argument that PRICE is asserted after COST by adding an arbitrary PROFIT. Much of Marx's argument depends on this baseless assertion. Did he ever actually take on risk and attempt to run a business? No-- he was forever purely an academic/journalist/author, never ran a business in his life. Who does that sound like?
If we don't want to be pick-pocketed by politicos, then we need to stop regarding economics as something akin to mathematics; it is not anything remotely like mathematics. It is political science. It is political argument by other means, including, taking on the veneer of mathematics, presenting charts and equations, and blustering about like those natives in those South Pacific Islands in their grass hut airfields and wooden airplane replicas trying to take on the form if not essence of that which has the power to bring silver birds down from the sky and deliver bellies full of goods to a wondrous tribe.
Is it hard to identify these 'economists' as being in any particular camp?
Paul Krugman; any guess?
Milton Friedman; any guess?
Friedrich A Hyek; any guess?
John M. Keynes; any guess?
Karl Marx; any guess? Karl Heinrich Marx (Berlin German pronunciation: [kaːɐ̯l ˈhaɪnʀɪç ˈmaːɐ̯ks], 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.
"economist." The Hell you say? What kind?
Joseph Stiglitz; any guess?
Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, ForMemRS, FBA (born February 9, 1943) is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979). He is also the former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. He is known for his critical view of the management of globalization, free-market economists (whom he calls "free market fundamentalists"), and some international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
In 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), a think tank on international development based at Columbia University. Since 2001, he has been a member of the Columbia faculty, and has been a University Professor since 2003. He also chairs the University of Manchester's Brooks World Poverty Institute as well as the Socialist International Commission on Global Financial Issues and is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
... and yet, we claim it is possible to study something called 'economics' and become an 'economist.' Well for sure, that is possible.
What I am asserting is not possible is, to do so and not be uniquely either a conservative or liberal economist. There is no such thing as objective economics, it is not a 'science' any more than Political Science is a 'science.'
It is political wrestling by other means, by means of taking on the veneer of science for a respectability ("here comes some objective truth")that is undeserved. When someone is selling an economic argument, they are selling a political argument, period.
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