Ah. Economics can’t say whether “the world would be better” if people cut out conspicuous consumption. Positive economics can say something about what would happen to the economy if people’s preferences were different (or if there were a tax on “diamond goods”). Welfare economics can say something about how well the change might measure up in terms of some assumed social goal(s). But more than that and we’re pushing our role.
I rather suspect you and your friend are talking at cross purposes. His consumption argument isn’t obviously silly. If instead of spending some part of their income on luxury clothes, the rich gave away the money and the recipients spent it on stuff, at first glance you wouldn’t expect much to happen. Obviously different things would get produced, but there’s no sense in which the rich “provide jobs” by buying designer clothes.
Now, you could tell a fancier story where the economy might get affected negatively in some way - perhaps the recipients’ work incentives are badly harmed, or it turns out that fads for the rich are a driver of productivity growth - but the key point is that as long as someone is demanding goods, the situation’s much the same.
Maybe I didn’t explain the situation well. We were not arguing about if the world would be a better place in general, it was about the economic impact. I don’t see how the impact could be positive or neutral. He’s advocating that nobody buy anything they don’t need or things that have “inflated” prices. Everyone, in his scenario, would own very few consumer goods, and would not engage in expensive leisure activities (like golf, etc.). How exactly could this be a positive thing economically?
But the “recipients” wouldn’t spend it on stuff. Very few people would spend money on stuff, and even when they did, they would be buying cheap stuff. Nobody would buy designer clothing, makeup, sporting equipment, perfume, deodorant (which he doesn’t use), DVD players, etc. Overnight, all those people would be out of work. Fancy restaurants would close down, sports teams would go bankrupt, and jewelry stores would be out of business. I don’t see how this could have no effect on the economy. Different things may be produced, but nobody would buy them.
But nobody is demanding goods in his world. That’s the point. Unless I’m missing the point you are making, I can’t see how this is wouldn’t have a disastrous outcome.
You’re not missing my point. I still kind of think you must be misssing your friend’s because, yep, that’s wacky.
There are lots of things you could say about those types of luxuries - the rat race is self-defeating; even the rich would be better off if such things were taxed; the poor have a better case for the money - but clearly if no-one’s buying goods with the money, the economy’s going to be rather different. Indeed, the income won’t be made in the first place.
Whether or not it’s a disaster kind of depends on why the change comes about. If it’s a sudden and genuine realisation that my preferences are more towards mung beans and contemplation than previously realised (and I could then work a lot less) , the economy could be smaller in terms of output as we measure it now, man, but bigger in terms of the real preferences masked by materialism
From a Popperian perspective, the question is; does economics deal with propositions which can possibly be shown to be false. I would say that it certainly does. Now, the falsification is more statistical by nature (but, heck, that’s also effectively true of quantum mechanics) and the timescales are often quite long (but so is the case in evolutionary biology and cosmology!), and there are all kinds of economic statements which cannot be falsified (but all sciences have pseudoscientific fringes).
But essentially, if I say “raising interest rates makes more people unemployed”, then an economic investigation can be carried out which could show that, actually, here is a case where interest rates were raised and unemployment fell: you must propose a new test for your overall hypothesis, whatever it is, since that one failed. That is how science works.
No, it’s not a science. Far too politically hot, far too easily manipulated for political purposes. A lot of laissez faire capitalists, for example, would like people to believe that economics is a scientist and that any economic scheme that varies from their idea of what’s best is doomed to fail because it’s not scientific. They are, of course, full of it. As a general rule, people who say economics is a scientists are economists or economist-wannabes who want you to allow their assertions to go unchallenged. It’s a useful scam, if you can pull it off.
Well, I’m a scientist, and I recognise that the assertions of respected academic economists (not politicians) can be challenged because they or their consequences can usually be tested. Any aspiring economist who simply spouted untestable assertions woudl simply not get peer-review published.
No, trust me, I’m not. I made sure I allowed him to explain himself throughly before I responded because what I heard initially was so crazy, I figured he couldn’t possibly mean what I thought. I was right though, he did mean it.
Which was my point to him, but he doesn’t get it.
Can you elaborate on this.
This could be, and has been said about every “science”. Do you think hard sciences like Biology and Chemistry are immune to political influence?
Frex, on topics like global warming you clearly have some cause for honest disagreement as it’s undeniable that climactic weather shifts occur over long periods of time and it really hard to say what part of global warming is part of a natural pattern and which isn’t. Still, you and I know that there are fat-cat polluters who are perfectly capable of finding degreed individuals who will be happy (for a sufficiently large grant/fee/bribe) to say, “There ain’t no such thing as man-made global warming, this is all just natural climate change” until every major coastal metropolis looks like Venice. So all science is amenable to some influence.
But economics is a special case because it applies so directly to the issue of “How will we divvy the booty up?” in any society and lends itself to the most self-serving argument I have ever encountered in any discussion. I have seen it used on the Dope and in mainstream media. It goes like this: "Economics is a science, and it supports my view of how things could go, which is (name yer poison, but on the Dope it’s mostly laissez faire capitalism). You may wish things were different, but I tell you with the authority of science that they cannot be different, and that any other scheme for divvying up the booty is doomed to fail, relative to (name yer poison).
What this means essentially is that regular folk are completely frozen out of the discussion, as they tend not to be economists. With this argument, the (name yer poison) crew tosses the huge majority of folk out of any possibility of having any input in how their society is run, and how much of the booty is theirs. The divvying will all be done by the economists, who almost invariably work for the haves. Very nice argument indeed, if you can get people to buy it. I personally am having none of it. You don’t need to be an economist to know when you’re being robbed.
But is that because of something inherent in the field of economics, or because the stakes are higher in the eyes of many? If not, it would seem arguing economics is flawed in ways other sciences aren’t would be foolish.
Sometimes, there is honest disagreement among economists as well. I think you are ignoring the egregious examples of abuse in other sciences. Like the approval of dangerous drugs and procedures, the various studies done on things like smoking and obesity, and those done on racial differences used to justify all sorts of racism. Biologists can be bought, and can be as ignorant as economists.
But that’s true of any science. Again, do you really think you could discuss chemistry with a chemist without him/her using scientific theories/facts, and specialized language. You have to realize that many economic theories can be shown to be less practical, or advisable than others, using the scientific method. If it freezes some people out of the debate, and that is unfortunate, but it’s inevitable when you are dealing with complex issues.
The average person’s input is taken into account on voting day, as it always has been. There is no other way to go about it. I think we also need to face the fact that many people are stupid, and their input would be worthless because they don’t understand what they are talking about. It’s the same argument we’re having (in the US) over evolution. The evidence for it is complex (in many cases), and overwhelming. Yet, normal people discuss evolution. Science will always be difficult to grasp for a large number of people, but that doesn’t point to a flaw in the science, it just speaks to people’s ignorance.
You were suggesting that those (like myself) who propose that economics is a science (in that it deals with falsifiable hypotheses) do so as an appeal to authority to support their own political worldview, and that economists do not merely study the distribution of wealth but are instrumental in the distribution itself. These are simple strawmen; that many people use science incorrectly (be that economics or other fields) has no bearing on the question the OP asks.
The problem with this definition is that, with all due respect, it just doesn’t make any sense. Science is not about what you KNOW; it’s about trying to find out things you don’t know.
If sciences are defined as areas where there’s already a lot of common agreement then logically there’s no science in any area until a lot of the critical science has already taken place, which obviously is senseless. It would be nuts to suggest that “Geology” wasn’t a science until about 1920 or so because scientists prior to that had no common agreement of how old the Earth was, or that physics wasn’t a science until scientists finally let go of the idea of “ether.”
Science is the systematic study of natural phenomena. Economics does that, so it’s a science. Actually, IMHO, it’s a subdivision of psychology, which is clearly a science.
Evil Captor’s case has, I think, been thoroughly rebutted.
When I was in college, I used to have a term for disciplines like psychology, sociology and economics. I said there were hard sciences, like physics, and soft sciences like ecology, and then there were the “made-up sciences.”
Well then, let us set aside these men of straw you place on “my” side and debate me directly. Economics makes falsifiable hypotheses such as “raising interest rates throws people out of work” or “Eurozone countries must be less Keynesian than the US”, and constructs mathematical models of phenomena such as supply vs. demand or game theory which can be shown to be either largely accurate or utter hogwash, and is therefore a science. Rebut me.
It’s nice that you make up your own definitions, but if they don’t make any common sense, who else should care?
How is psychology not a science? It’s the study of natural phenomena, is it not? I mean, I don’t mean to reverse-argue-from-authority, but I do have to wonder what your familiarly is with these fields of study if you don’t think they’re sciences.
Economics is not what you see on that TV show where the guy with the beard is running around the set screaming about stocks - Crazy Money or whatever it’s called. Actual, live economists spend their time drudging through mounds of objective evidence to prove or falsify hypotheses. What the difference is between that and so-called hard sciences, I’d like to know, because it sure isn’t very apparent to me.