Monday, January 27, 2014

Steve Keen — Why economists are almost always wrong

That verbose title is almost the reverse of a quintessentially arrogant statement of economic supremacy published in the UK’s Daily Telegraph - on the editorial page of the business section - by Andrew Lilico. Entitled “Economists are nearly always right about things, despite what you may think” in the print edition, its content and tone encapsulated everything about economic theory, and economists’ blind belief in it, that led me to write Debunking Economics over a decade ago....
The two main factors that made that book necessary were the capacity of economists to intimidate opponents with their apparent depth of knowledge of a difficult subject, and the reality that economists knowledge of their own subject was, to coin a phrase, not even shallow: it was frequently outright wrong. 
Business Spectator
Why economists are almost always wrong
Steve Keen

Lilico’s defence of economics despite its many empirical failings is the mark of a zealot. That is the real weakness of mainstream economic theory: that it engenders in its followers a manic belief that is impervious to empirical reality.
This was the thought — WTF? — that came to me as I read Lilico's article when it came out.


2 comments:

John Zelnicker said...

Tom -- I had that WTF!! moment when I read the first quote Steve had from Lilico's article. It's hard to believe someone supposedly so smart can be so dumb. Ideology trumps intelligence, I guess.

Matt Franko said...

All being "stupid" is, is lacking the key KNOWLEDGE required to work successfully in the topic area...

They lack knowledge... rsp,