Re: Economics as religion

[phillp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

From:           	Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
To:             	m <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, pen-l <pen-
l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date sent:      	Fri, 19 Apr 2002 18:16:51 -0400
Subject:        	[PEN-L:25197] Economics as religion
Send reply to:  	pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>At times Nelson seems to deny the prospect of a value-free
analysis. Here,
I think he goes too far. Positive economics is alive and well in
academia,
and the economic paradigm of choice within constraints is being
pushed
steadily forward to new frontiers of explanation (including religion).
There are no hidden values here; there is no sub-text. There is a
simple
desire to explain the world as it is in a more understandable way.
The
relevant question to these scholars is not how but why? Most of
the work
that Nelson discusses in the modern Chicago approach and in the
New
Institutional Economics is this type of analysis. And while
understanding
the world per se may actually lead to social change, I do not think
this
correlation is thought about or stressed very much by these
analysts.
Their focus is on understanding, not changing, the world.

Positive economics is alive and well and living in Austria?  What a
crock.  Show me any orthodox micro analysis that isn't rife with
normative assumptions and I will genuflect with humiliation.  I have
no worries that I will be so obliged.

Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba