Ian Welsh— Problems with Economics: The Cult of Utility

Ian Welsh critiques "utility," "revealed preferences," and (economic) "rationality."

Conclusion: "It's bullshit." 

What's important is welfare and none of these concepts relate to it in a meaningful way. 

Homo economicus is not concerned with welfare in a meaningful sense. Homo socialis is.

Problems with Economics: The Cult of Utility
Ian Welsh

Cameron K. Murray — Explaining everything explains nothing: Economics

Sure, humans often make calculated decisions, but the more I learn about the nexus between individual behaviour and how we behave in groups, the more I see very little value in rational-individualist views of economic systems that see all behaviour arising from God-given personal tastes. Without acknowledging the necessity of group-coordination mechanisms intrinsic in our behaviour, we are missing the main story.

Fresh Economic Thinking
Explaining everything explains nothing: Economics
Cameron K. Murray

Noah Smith — "The Case For Mindless Economics", 10 years on

This is a mindless argument. There is no rule about choosing assumption for modeling other than the usefulness of the model. A model might a heuristic or a thought experiment not designed or represented as realistic. However, models that are offered as being realistic face the test of evidence.

The best explanation is the one that satisfies the traditional four criteria — consistency, correspondence, simplicity, and usefulness — more fully than others.

Often there is not a best explanation in that meets all criteria, but any model that claims to be representational of reality must pass the correspondence test in terms of evidence in terms of what speaks for it and what speaks against it.

At the same time, it is possible that the currently best explanation, even though it is not terribly representation of reality, might be the best explanation available given the criteria, that it, it is consistent and relatively simple. It may be that it's just not very useful to rely on predictively.

Anyway, Noah sets forth the issues.

However, if a highly predictable model were ever generated in finance, that would be the end of a lot of financial transaction unless fools were taking the other side of the trade.

Noahpinion
"The Case For Mindless Economics", 10 years on
Noah Smith | Assistant Professor of Finance, Stony Brook University

Bill Black — Revealed Biases: Why MMT Critics Continue to Rely on Strawman Arguments

Economists of nearly every flavor believe in the concept of “revealed preferences.” What matters is not what people say they will do in a hypothetical situation, but what they actually do. Their actions speak more credibly than their words. In this column I announce a related concept: “revealed biases.”

Guess what's coming. Ouch. Bill has mastered the art of the smack down.

New Economic Perspectives
Revealed Biases: Why MMT Critics Continue to Rely on Strawman Arguments
William K Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City

See also Randy Wray, Bill Black Blasts Lazy Critics of MMT at Economonitor

Randy quotes the best of Bill's smack downs and comments himself.

Lars P. Syll — Foundations of Paul Samuelson’s Revealed Preference Theory

Wonkish but important in taking down the foundations on which the neoclassical assumption of equilibrium based, positing a representational rational agent using utility maximization as the driver. The problem lies in defining "utility" in a way that provides a connection between the theory and the world it purports to explain through a general description. The problem with "utility" is that it is subjective, hence, non-descriptive. Samuelson tried to overcome this bias using revealed preference, which is behavioral, hence, can be described, e.g., through indifference curves. The post is why this approach is also deficient. Neoclassical economics presumes a downward sloping demand curve, and this cannot be shown convincingly using revealed preference as Paul Samuelson had attempted.

Lars P. Syll
Foundations of Paul Samuelson’s Revealed Preference Theory