Re: Income distribution

[Mason Clark <masonc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
>"The Theory of Economics does not furnish a body of settled conclusions immediately applicable to a policy.  It is a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus of the mind, a technique of thinking, which helps its possessor to draw correct conclusions."

I must have read this 37 times and each time I understood it to
say that the Theory of Economics is useless except as an exercise
for the mind or as a tool that is incomplete -- "it helps".

I would make an analogy to a slide rule: helpful if one has a theory to
work on, but not itself a theory.

If the Theory of Economics does not furnish useful conclusions
applicable to policy, then what does it do?  If it is an incomplete tool,
what else is needed?

My readings of economics these last few years have led me perilously
close to the conclusion that it is a "glass bead game."   Save me.

    Mason