Peter Radford — Where’s the Structure?

This general perspective is why I abhor most economics. One of the most important aspects of reality economists have tossed overboard in their pursuit of perfection is the existence of structure. They ignore time and space. Or, rather, they abuse it. They compress it into nothing and thus absolve themselves of the task of explaining structure. They treat transactions with a disdain unbecoming to a science with transacting at its heart. They assume a weightless, frictionless, and certain coincidence of supply and demand that takes place outside of time and space. They ignore all the evidence of the need for structure because structure requires them to step back from their ideal and step within the complications of reality. And those complications, with uncertainty underlying them, are the root cause of structure. 

Order itself, of course, implies structure. And, in this case, structure is the transmitter of information. It is the origin of information. It is the end of information. Without structure there is no information for there is no way of telling one thing apart from another.
Yet economists pluck order from nowhere. It just appears. There are no processes, no spaces, no time elapses, no sources of potential disruption. It just appears. The information within the economy is assumed into place. It is dropped in situ all at once. It does not evolve, mutate, alter in any way. It just appears as if by magic. The props necessary for this magic are nowhere accounted for. And if, or when, they are encountered they too are assumed to be in place ready to play their role with their history or origin unquestioned. With reality so determinedly set aside most economics has no need of structure. There is no need of support to hold the edifice together because, well, it just is. 

So most economics cannot ever explain why an economy came to be. It cannot provide a history. It cannot account for change. It cannot explain difference. Economies, in the mainstream account, just appear. Most economics posits economies as being born miraculously without gestation, created as if by a divine hand, all magic and no substance. 

Then, subsequent to this magical appearance, economists settle down to explain the economy’s operation. But without, let me repeat, having any account of how it arose in the first place. The entire theoretical approach is a tautology.
All because they want to ignore structure and the reasons for structure. Which, in turn, they ignore because they assume away uncertainty [by imposing ergodicity, as Paul Davidson pointed out]....

Economics is not rocket science (ergodic). It's more like weather forecasting (chaotic), or evolutionary theory (complex).

The economics profession is divided into those who assume naturalism and ergodicity and those who assume historicism and institutionalism, which are subject to uncertainty, those who favor formalism and those who favor realism, those who favor mathematics and those who favor accounting.

Fundamentally the dispute is over methodology. The criterion for comparing theories is fundamentally pragmatic. Which is more useful in dealing with the uncertainty of the future by getting it more closely correct in retrospect as events unfold.

The Radford Free Press
Where’s the Structure?
Peter Radford