Sunday, December 8, 2019

There is No Economics without Politics: Every economic model is built on political assumptions — Anat Admati


I would add philosophical, social, and scientific to economic assumption. For example, academic economics focuses on homo economicus, ignoring that there is no clearcut, hard and fast distinction among the aspects of life that the various disciplines study. In previous times, when knowledge as a whole was more tractable, one was expected to know the fundamentals of the spectrum of life and knowledge. With the proliferation of information and knowledge, this is no longer possible.

But even in the days when a broader scope was the rule, the field of knowledge was largely limited to that of one's down culture and language. The intellectual tradition meant "the Western intellectual tradition" and that was further narrowed to one's linguistic group.

This presents a challenge in the age of globalization, in which different groups view the world through their own lenses. The result is the silo thinking that Anat Admati warns to avoid. Each of these silos has its own lens embedded in its assumptions, stated, unstated, and often simply presumed as assumptions hidden even from the ones assuming them.

Just about everyone confuses reality with their own worldview, which is a presumed framework that structures one's approach to life.

Evonomics
There is No Economics without Politics: Every economic model is built on political assumptions
Anat Admati is the George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

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