Sandwichman — Mathiness and Growthiness

The fundamental reason why we cannot do without dialectical concepts is that actuality, at least as seen by the human mind, continuously changes qualitatively. … —Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, "Methods in Economic Science"

Like I've been sayin' in those same words.  And quality is more important in life than quantity.

In a 1981 commentary on Georgescu-Roegen's paper, Salim Rashid defended economists' persistence in undialectical methods as lying "not in their failure to appreciate the importance of dialectical logic, but in the institutional structure within which they live and work."

I would say this in terms of dialectical reasoning versus institutional arrangements in that dialectical reasoning incorporates institutional arrangements along with many other relevant factors in taking a holistic (systems) approach. Institutional arrangements are norms that generate priorities that can be analyzed quantitatively to a degree. But institutions are fundamentally qualitative, based on an organizational culture for example.

They follow dialectical logic, as Bill Black has been documenting regarding the behavior of the officers of TBTF banks. It is perfectly rational dialectically to pursue control fraud in an unregulated and unsupervised criminogenic environment where the stakes are huge and the potential for being caught, let alone punished, is small.

Conventional economists missed this, am most are still blissfully unaware of it, because they assumed away criminogenic environments, resultantly predictable based on historical precedent, in their chiefly quantitive approach based on restrictive assumptions, for example, in this case an overly restrictive definition of rationality and interest that rules the issue out. Subsequently, Fed chair (hence regulator in chief) Alan Greenspan later admitted his "mistake" after the horses had left the barn.

Sandwichman always write good stuff. If you are not following him, this is a good one to read if you are at all interested in the critique of conventional economics. It goes much fur there than a critique of Paul Romer's view of mathiness.

Econospeak
Mathiness and Growthiness

Sandwichman