Economics, mathematized and divorced from moral philosophy, was effectively neutered after WW II, at the point when its relevance to “serious economic argument” might have been established and developed. The outcome was perfectly aligned with market forces that would continue to shift the national narrative in ways that would finally succeed in convincing people that “government is the problem”. It culminated in repeal of Great Depression era regulation, thereby freeing investment bankers for unfettered speculative gains supported by a seemingly unfettered single-payer credit default safety net.Excellent!
Now add to this the promotion and tenure policies at even second rate economics departments that require and only reward publication in journals that favor morally vacant, mathematically rigorous, theoretically obtuse existence proofs that more often than not bear no relation to reality as we know it. One is then left with an economics literature that few people, including some who have majored in economics as undergrads, can truly understand, either in its content or in its relevance to the important moral and economic issues that confront us today.
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Economics provided the theory and language that supported the drive to the ditch we find ourselves in. We did it by allowing economics to become divorced from moral philosophy. Now the economy is on life support and most people in this democracy can’t tell the “difference between cynical posturing and serious economic argument,” but they can and will vote.
If economists were physicians, we would be sued for malpractice.
I'm currently reading through an idiotic book called Micro-Economics Demystified: A Self-Teaching Guide. The book claims to be a quick & easy route to "understanding" but it present formulas without laying any groundwork. It presents formulas without justifying how they relate to anything but an abstruse model of a "world" that has nothing to do with this world. I understand the concept of simplifying reality to get at the bare bones and presenting that in mathematical formalisms to allow manipulation to understand key relationships. But this book, written by an idiot, fails to understand that math isn't "the answer". It is a tool. If you don't justify the formalization. if you don't motivate the simplifications needed in order to present a model, then you are wasting a student's time.
This book pretends to "demystify" economics but it is actually the extreme opposite of that. It puts the math on a pedestal and leaves out the motivation and the explanation and thereby mystifies "economics" as something with no connections with the real world. Instead a student is encouraged to do formal manipulations of math and graphs as "the content" of economics. But that puts the cart in front of the horse. The math and the graphs are tools, not the final product. This author never exposes the student to the underlying concepts in a way that makes the formalisms understandable. No student could read this book and walk away saying "ah! now I understand why the economy behaves the way it does, or individuals act in the way they do, or firms behave as they do. Nope. The mystified & rarified formalisms don't give a student any toehold on real world behaviour.
Worse, this book proudly lays out the "necessary assumptions" needed to make the formalizations to work. It blithely ignores the fact that these "necessary assumptions" clearly violate factual human behaviour. Why would any student take this stuff seriously when no rationale connecting the offered formalisms -- especially given the simplifying assumptions that vitiate any "reality" to the resulting formulas -- to real world economic behaviour is ever offered? Bizarre!
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