Comment by Nasrudith | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nasrudith | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Yeah - it is telling that economics criticism rarely includes any alternative model and if it does tends to be meaningless feel-good inane fluff like "Gross Happiness Product". The same sort of woo as "alternative medicine" calling working medicine allopathic as a slur. What do they call economics which actually work more or less? Neoliberalism.

The reoccurring criticisms of GDP are fundamentally clueless as complaining that gasoline poisons you when you drink it, therefore energy density per volume or mass is invalid. GDP is still power but the things they complain about are applications. The whole point of trade is that you can convert funds from like gold or tourism to tractors and medicine.

Frankly they tend to be childish tantrums calling economists evil for not reflecting their sacred imperatives of how they believe the world should be.

"rarely includes any alternative model"? Did you read the piece?

Here is the alternative model proposed by Skidelsky:

"These deep methodological issues do not render economic knowledge utterly useless, Skidelsky suggests. But they do mean economics as we know it may have to be thrown out. [...] We should instead take a more provisional, open, and flexible attitude toward economic phenomena and treat economics as (just) another social science, rather than one supposedly purified of uncertainty by its logical prowess. Concretely, this means we should abandon dreams of an immaculate science of economic life—and stop deferring to those who claim to speak in its name. More abstractly, in place of a discipline that neglects the 'mesoeconomic' level—the institutions, firms, unions, banking systems, social movements, digital platforms, states, and other social entities that shape our behavior—Skidelsky proposes an approach 'which is more modest in its epistemology and richer in its ontology.'"

That's not an alternative model. And by that, I don't mean it doesn't have enough math, what I mean is that it doesn't offer any different methodology for improving our knowledge of the economy. All of the things listed here can be included in the current framework of economic theory. There's no alternative being put forth here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com