Jason Smith — On these 33 theses

The other day, Rethinking Economics and the New Weather Institute published "33 theses" and metaphorically nailed them to the doors of the London School of Economics. They're re-published here. I think the "Protestant Reformation" metaphor they're going for is definitely appropriate: they're aiming to replace "neoclassical economics" — the Roman Catholic dogma in this metaphor — with a a pluralistic set of different dogmas — the various dogmas of the Protestant denominations (Lutheran, Anabaptist, Calvinist, Presbyterian, etc). For example, Thesis 2 says:

2. The distribution of wealth and income are fundamental to economic reality and should be so in economic theory.

This may well be true, but a scientific approach does not assert this and instead collects empirical evidence that we find to be in favor of hypotheses about observables that are affected by the distribution of wealth. A dogmatic approach just assumes this. It is just as dogmatic as neoclassical economics assuming the market distribution is efficient.

In fact, several of the theses are dogmatic assertions of things that either have tenuous empirical evidence in their favor or are simply untested hypotheses. These theses are not things you dogmatically assert, but rather should show with evidence:

I wonder whether economics should be taught as a science, especially since conventional economists seem to think that economics is more like physics than the social sciences.

There are problems with assuming that, which I won't repeat. But to my mind, the most obvious difficulty is well-known among the public. Perhaps the most powerful argument for "science" is demonstrated not in words, or through experiment, but rather in the success of technology that everyone uses all the time to change the world.

Is there anything like this with respect to economics? Not only no, but also the opposite in many cases.

The study economics is not even a required in most business schools, because business schools have discovered that time is better spent in getting results. If it got results, business schools would be hiring the top economists. They are not.

The teaching of economics needs to be rethought in light not only of the failure of economists to deliver results but also in their making bad situations worse. The dismal handling of the aftermath of the global financial crisis is a case in point. In addition, conventional economists and policymakers have literally laid waste entire European countries and their economies.

A lot of people are likely thinking, if this science we want none of it. Monkeys throwing darts could probably do better.

And ironically, Western economists and policymakers were put to shame by the positive result that China showed using a command economy to address the issues promptly and avoid contraction. But Western economists explain this by "cheating."

Information Transfer Economics

On these 33 theses

Jason Smith