Peter Radford — Science or Politics?

Orthodox economics is a sham as a science. It is an ideology masquerading as science. How else can we describe a body of thought that appears totally inflexible and immune to contradictory evidence? It does not adjust. It’s believers do not learn. They preach. They proselytize. Their theory lies exposed for all to see as a mere prop for a particular point of view. A point of view that justifies inequality of outcomes and mean spirited indifference to the plight of vast swathes of our fellow citizens in the name of pseudo-efficiencies in the allocation of our collective resources. These supposed efficiencies are neither observable nor measurable in the real world, but only within the enclosed, cramped spaces of models specially created to produce a very limited and desired outcome. Desired, that is, by those who value extreme individualism over community, excessive competition over cooperation, and an almost pathological belief in rational behavior over human cognitive frailty....

The Radford Free Press
Science or Politics?
Peter Radford

See, Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics
Edited by Donald MacKenzie, Fabian Muniesa & Lucia Siu

Around the globe, economists affect markets by saying what markets are doing, what they should do, and what they will do. Increasingly, experimental economists are even designing real-world markets. But, despite these facts, economists are still largely thought of as scientists who merely observe markets from the outside, like astronomers look at the stars. Do Economists Make Markets? boldly challenges this view. It is the first book dedicated to the controversial question of whether economics is performative--of whether, in some cases, economics actually produces the phenomena it analyzes.

The book's case studies--including financial derivatives markets, telecommunications-frequency auctions, and individual transferable quotas in fisheries--give substance to the notion of the performativity of economics in an accessible, nontechnical way. Some chapters defend the notion; others attack it vigorously. The book ends with an extended chapter in which Michel Callon, the idea's main formulator, reflects upon the debate and asks what it means to say economics is performative.

The book's insights and strong claims about the ways economics is entangled with the markets it studies should interest--and provoke--economic sociologists, economists, and other social scientists.

In addition to the editors and Callon, the contributors include Marie-France Garcia-Parpet, Francesco Guala, Emmanuel Didier, Philip Mirowski, Edward Nik-Khah, Petter Holm, Vincent-Antonin Lépinay, and Timothy Mitchell.

Also, Peter Radford, Affluent Rules

A couple of weeks ago I led off an article with a quote from a new Gilens and Page paper – linked to in the article. Subsequently I have acquired and waded through the Gilens book “Affluence & Influence”....

If by democracy we mean that government policy is at least somewhat responsive to the preferences of the citizenry, all the citizenry, then the US is not a democracy. Not in any truthful practical sense.

America is run by the wealthy, for the wealthy....

The only time those lower down the chain get a few crumbs thrown their way is when a policy suits, or reflects a preference of, those at the top too. Otherwise they are ignored. Totally....

I wonder why policy is the way it is?

And: if it isn’t class warfare, what is it?