An economics, investment, trading and policy blog with a focus on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). We seek the truth, avoid the mainstream and are virulently anti-neoliberalism.
Pages
▼
Pages
▼
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Eric Schliesser — On Ethics & Economics and the Pre-History of Friedman’s ‘as if’
Good post on philosophy of economics with special attention to Frank Knight and Milton Friedman.
Partly OT, all models have assumptions and the choice of assumptions can make or break the model. That's a given.
All freshmen engineering students are required to spell out their assumptions at the beginning of every assigned problem. It's a good habit to get into. One of my peeves with economists is that they didn't take that freshman engineering class and didn't acquire the habit of spelling out their assumptions, so you have to read between the lines to guess at their assumptions.
"economics is in principle independent of any particular ethical position or normative judgments. As [J.N.] Keynes says, it deals with "what is," not with "what ought to be,"
I'm not sure that I agree with Keynes on that issue. Even the definition of engineering is supposed to have an ethical element -- to do something that is useful for society. Licensed engineers take it a step further and are held to a code of ethics that puts public safety first. If their bridge collapses or if their boiler blows up, the engineer can lose his license. Imagine if economists were held to similar ethical standards !
Partly OT, all models have assumptions and the choice of assumptions can make or break the model. That's a given.
ReplyDeleteAll freshmen engineering students are required to spell out their assumptions at the beginning of every assigned problem. It's a good habit to get into. One of my peeves with economists is that they didn't take that freshman engineering class and didn't acquire the habit of spelling out their assumptions, so you have to read between the lines to guess at their assumptions.
"economics is in principle independent of any particular ethical position or normative judgments. As [J.N.] Keynes says, it deals with "what is," not with "what ought to be,"
I'm not sure that I agree with Keynes on that issue. Even the definition of engineering is supposed to have an ethical element -- to do something that is useful for society. Licensed engineers take it a step further and are held to a code of ethics that puts public safety first. If their bridge collapses or if their boiler blows up, the engineer can lose his license. Imagine if economists were held to similar ethical standards !