RE: Re: Economics as religion

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

>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. <

normative assumptions seem inherent in the process of building models.
Models, by their very nature, simplify empirical reality in order to
understand it. Then you must decide which simplifying assumptions to make.
The standard one is "perfect competition without externalities (etc.)" -- so
that the standard model involves a clearly normative assumption, saying that
the real world is close to being a utopia. One could assume monopolistic
competition instead, but not only does that make the model more complicated,
it almost certainly reflects one's normative view that the real world isn't
close to perfect.

That doesn't say that all models should be rejected. Rather, the point is to
be conscious of the problem. JD