Yeah, I’m not writing a dissertation here, dude. I’m just writing an article on Medium, one that’s way longer and more argumentative than what typically flies on this platform. Nor is this article just a list of accusations. It includes arguments that make the case and a balanced conclusion at the end. As to whether all the premises are true, readers can decide for themselves.
Most of the premises are common knowledge anyway. No, for example, I’m not saying economists explicitly hide their assumptions behind their math. I’m saying folks are prone to ignoring the assumptions or presuming they’re solid when the focus is clearly on an elaborate mathematical presentation. In other words, the math is dazzling so you forget that the whole model is trash because of GIGO.
And yeah, the documentary “Inside Job” made it common knowledge that the leading economists exploit lucrative opportunities to serve as consultants.
And I’m afraid it’s the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to your pop psychological diagnosis. Don’t you think you could be protesting just a little too much by spamming my article with this flotilla of indignant defenses of the field to which you’re personally committed? Apparently, your excuse for doing so is that you think I have a significant audience, so you’re only doing some good by correcting the record and protecting the honour of economics. As if anything will change because of my criticisms!
No, if these articles of mine were baseless, you’d just ignore or dismiss them, not devote entire afternoons to responding to them point by point. Evidently, you suspect economics isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but your graduate work commits you to towing the line. And you don’t want to be reminded of these unconscious doubts you’re having, not even by some lowly Medium articles, so you lash out with personal attacks about my integrity.
Honestly, I pity you a little because I used to be in a similar boat as a philosophy graduate student. Philosophy, too, isn’t so popular outside the academy. Lots of folks assume that philosophy is pure BS. And economics has a bad rap for the reasons I state in the article.
But there’s a big difference between those disciplines. Even analytic philosophers who puff themselves up with formal logic and abstruse topics to make their discipline seem as rigorous as science don’t pretend that philosophy is a science. There’s no Nobel Prize in philosophy. But by pretending their discipline is more scientific than it is, economists perpetrate a fraud on the public that actively harms society. That’s the only reason I bother to criticize economics.
And you’ll have to live with that widespread assessment of your discipline. Again, then, your preposterous projection about me cashing in on Medium is amusing because you’ll be the one raking in the bucks from that fraud. Pot kettle black.
