Re: Argentina and currency boards

["Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb@xxxxxxx>]

     This is in response to the widely quoted wisecrack
about "physics envy" that I think was originated by Phil
Mirowski, if I am not mistaken.  Actually, as a number of
observers have recently pointed out, including Deirdre
McCloskey and Brian Arthur, it should really be labeled
"mathematics envy."  The tale is told about what happened
at the first Santa Fe conference on economics back in 1987
where a bunch of mainly neoclassical economists got
together with a bunch of physicists.  The physicists were
shocked at the propensity of the economists to prove
theorems that had nothing to do with the real world.  This
is not the way physicists proceed who are much more
empirical and when they are theoretical, much more "ad hoc"
as economists would say.  The emphasis on proving theorems
is actually an imitation of what the mathematicians do, not
what the physicists do.  And the physicists think that we
are suffering from a ridiculous version of rigorous mortis
when we do so.
Barkley Rosser
On Wed, 25 Nov 1998 16:56:18 +1100 "John M. Legge"
<jlegge@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> John B O'Donnell is grasping at straws when he tries to compare the
> standard metre with a standard of value  As initially constructed, the
> standard metre was accurate to one part in a million or so: the modern
> standard, based on the wavelength of light emitted from a particular
> isotope, is good for about one part in ten to the eleventh, comparable
> to measuring the entire economic activity of the USA over the course
> of a year to plus or minus fifty dollars.  By comparison, the best
> economic statistics are expressed to one decimal point of a
> percentage, or about five billion dollars.
>
> One of the most robust criticisms of orthodox economics is its
> "physics envy", the belief that economics should be a hard science
> with positive theorems leading to definite results.  One of the rocks
> upon which this endeavour regularly founders is the difficulty of
> establishing an agreed, reliable, unit of measure.  The great triumph
> of the neoclassical school came when they wriggled off this hook by
> denying that any universal measure of value was necessary, but as Alan
> Isaac has shown, they simply launched themselves from one frying pan
> into another.
>
> One of the most common facts of human behaviour is that people are
> different and will value the same thing in different ways, and even
> the same person will value the same thing differently under different
> circumstances.  This fact is sufficient to destroy the neoclassical
> project, and John O'Donnell's theorem along with it.
>
> Stripped of the attempt to create a theory of fundamental value, John
> seems to me to be voicing the sort of distrust of "government" which
> most of the world sees as a uniquely American characteristic.  Our
> history books say that George III was evicted from his American
> colonies 200 plus years ago, but John writes as if the redcoats were
> still in barracks around the corner, poised to impose a foreign and
> arbitrary rule upon the defenceless American population.
>
> I guess that one has to be brought up in America to realise that
> "government of the people, by the people, for the people" has perished
> from the earth and been replaced by a series of helpless puppets,
> forever manipulated by post-Keynesian economists, perpetually trying
> to rob the honest citizens by debasing the currency.
>
> JML
>
>
>

--
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
rosserjb@xxxxxxx