Re: economics 101

["James R. Olson, jr." <jhavok@xxxxxxxx>]

At 01:01 PM 3/8/97 -0800, Greg Ransom wrote:
>really have any place in helping us to understand what Joe
>in the gas station can understand?  My experience with folks
>attempting to develop insights available to everyone into
>grand 'high' theory is that stuff which everyone can recognize
>as true gets turned into stuff which everyone sees as having
>deep problems.  And i often see attempts to bail out these
>anomoly beset efforts with appeals to conceptual efforts which
>are either in even more trouble themselves, or which simply
>make matters more obscure.

Paradoxes are a good signal that either your axioms or your derivations are
flawed.  Perhaps what Joe at the gas station knows is wrong, that has been
known to happen, perhaps the extension of that knowledge into "high theory"
failed at some point.

>So the question is, do we need 'high theory' to have access to the
>sort of insights recently recounted by Gre Nowell on the limits
>of knowledge & interest & time, etc. which beset any voter in any sort
>of institutional framework.

Inadequacy of knowledge is a given of life.  Theory is a means of dealing
with that inadequacy.  Nowell's points went beyond inadequacy of attention
to address the forces controlling the inputs to our inadequate
knowledge/interest/time.  That's where theory comes into play.  I don't
know how high it needs to be.