Economics started as a branch of philosophy that got a lot of support because it draw a lot of support for its theory from maths.
Then, more recently, a good number of very inteligent people noticed the behaviours of economic models could be better predict and understood by using very simple psychological analysis and models.
I remember reading an article by two physicists where they just picked the oh-so-precious math of a given economic model, analysed it using the methods used to analyse physics and concluded the model was faulty by x+y+z.
It's a branch of sociology dominated by people who refuse to accept sociological research practices in the name of deluding themselves that they're uncovering grand truths about the universe. It would be hilarious and sad if politicians and journalists didn't listen to them.
No science started out as a “hard science”. Psychology is hard to quantify yet, because our currently available options for measurements are insufficient.
? That would still be biology and therefore reducible to chemistry and physics.
The approach of “everything is reducible to physics” is actually a philosophical theory that tries to describe what is reality. Is the material world everything that exists? Or are our thoughts (our knowing of things) actually a different reality? Etc.
In the end, the differentiation into the different sciences is simply an aid for people. I wouldn’t pay it that much attention because it really doesn’t tell you anything.
Being reducible is part of it, but I think reproducible is more important. Psychology is not reproducible. You can get statistical equivalents, but not exact reproduction of results.
I think being reducible is all of it. Even if it’s reproducable you can know THAT something is true, but not WHY it’s true. I think the why, or at least the ability and intention to get there, makes something a hard science.
The invisible hand is just bullshit and prices in our economy are often centrally planned by a monopoly or a cartel that decides how an industry ought to set prices.
Not the OP and IMO centrally planned prices doesn’t really apply to cartels, but a cartel set price that nearly everyone is familiar with is OPEC+ prices for petroleum.
I think Aesthelete better cleared up what I am trying to say using OPEC as an example. Other versions of this behavior is in Dairy / Milk in the US. They’re wasting millions of gallons of milk in order to keep the price higher where it’s set by a central planner in the industry. Farmers will choose certain days to sell their crop as to try and get the highest price - and this is an innocent behavior - but capitalism literally has a built-in mechanism to encourage this form of price stability. Another bad example is poultry production in the US. There’s 4 companies only, and small farmers actually license and rent all of the stuff from the big 4. These farmers are treated so terribly, and at the end of the day they don’t actually get to sell or set the price. The central company does.
Ceteris paribus, or all things equal is a super common economics phrase. It’s basically impossible to maintain in the real world. Economics used to be considered philosophy for a reason. As someone with a economics degree I do pretty much agree with you.
The “hard science” part of it is using past data to build models. You’re still more or less trying to tie the figures into a theory of why they happened that may or may not be true. There are so many factors it’s impossible to know. For instance I truly believe that the stronger anti-monopoly enforcement and higher taxes played a major role in America’s success and the rise of the middle class from post WW2-80s. I have to admit that there are an insane amount of other factors at play here that might invalidate all the trends during the same time though. Every other developed countries info structure being bombed to the ground giving the US a huge start not being the least of which.
the number of comments here who use hard sciences’ criteria as the ones and only defining the validity of knowledge is concerning. Human sciences don’t have the same foundations, methodologies, etc. as harde sciences, they don’t have the same system of validation either, which doesn’t mean it’s less valid.
This is a normal standpoint for anyone who has any meaningful knowledge of the world. The whole study of economics depends on a social construction - the economy.
Well, apparently a “good” economy destroy the planet, kills workers and don’t provide anymore healthcare. In fact, healthcare is detrimental to a good economy apparently, it liberals wouldn’t be so hard on destroying healthcare everywhere?
There is nothing which inherently says an economy has to be environmentally bad, indeed there are many examples of economic success on the back of renewable power.
I'd agree in too many cases an environmentally bad policy is persued with economic measures being given as a justification, but that is just bad policy.
A good economy can invest green, a bad economy is a collection of of people just trying to make ends meet - the environment will never benefit from this, environmentally distructive options are usually cheaper than their greener alternatives.
What do you think the economy is?
I would argue Iceland has a very good economy, yet it is world leading in renewable power and has minimal inequality.
Funny enough, this is a really underrated comment @snooggums
It's like most of the weather forecasters predicting the weather by watching other weather forecasters
And people making bets on cyclones and hurricanes
And if you get enough weather forecasters to agree it will rain, then it will rain.
With people cheering for sunny skies and rain clouds, and then arguing over breaks in the clouds vs gathering storms
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