# Is economics an empirical or an "axiomatic-deductive" science? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 23, 2006, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-economics-an-empirical-or-an-axiomatic-deductive-science/349583 "2006-03-23T14:04:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2006, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-economics-an-empirical-or-an-axiomatic-deductive-science/349583/61 "2006-03-24T15:13:55Z")
> [@](#): > > _Liberal_ > But that wasn’t one you included in your post. True, but the savings one is in that passage (I just didn’t quote it again). > [@](#): > > In fact, Hoppe himself dealt with that one specifically, stating that living standards can only be higher despite higher taxes; i.e., there is some cause to the higher living standard other than higher taxes. Eh? Is this one of those things where the sense of the thing (higher taxes are bad) is supposed to be something not obvious (higher taxes are bad unless the resource they represent are not THROWN INTO THE SEA, but rather are spent on nice things)? I think it’s pretty clear he means higher taxes= impossible to have higher standard of living (which is of course bollocks). Anyhoo, > [@](#): > > Can you speak to why they haven’t read Human Action, the very source of derivation for the school? I haven’t read it. Haven’t read Keynes’ General Theory. Or Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Or more than a few pages of Marshall or Marx or Schumpeter or Senior or Pigou. A little Arrow and Samuelson. A few books of North and Sen (they write short books). All the Austrian guys, indeed _anyone_ before 1970, is History of Economic Thought. Who’s got the time? Read the little boxes in the textbooks. Austrian vs German historical school? Ricardo’s take on the Corn Laws? The Cambridge capital controversies? Who cares. What are the first order conditions? What’s the perfect subgame equilibrium? The Austrians failed the market test (I’ve seen this advanced as a serious argument as to why they’re crap, IIRC in the Journal of Economic Literature). What is their research programme? If I (or my client) want to know what happens to spraypainters in Detroit when the US government cuts steel tariffs by 8% instead of 10%, what are they going to do, stroke their beards, tell me that prediction is a serious methodological error and leave me to the tender mercies of soothsayers or management consultants? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2006, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-economics-an-empirical-or-an-axiomatic-deductive-science/349583/62 "2006-03-24T16:05:31Z")
Hawthorne, with all due respect: (1) He is NOT saying that higher taxes = impossible to have a higher standard of living. He is saying that IF there is a higher standard of living, higher taxes is NOT the reason for it. It is a matter of non causa pro causa. (2) What I don’t like about reading books about books about books is that the secondary and tertiary authors often have biases, and sometimes make outright errors in interpretation. It would be like studying philosophy by reading “All About Plato” instead of reading “Parmenides”. (3) Your argument about the soothsayers and management consultants is exactly the same argument Sylvia Browne used on Larry King Live when someone had the nerve to ask why anybody needed her: what would people do if she weren’t there to tell them what is going to happen? ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2006, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-economics-an-empirical-or-an-axiomatic-deductive-science/349583/63 "2006-03-24T20:38:01Z")
> [@](#): > > Your argument about the soothsayers and management consultants is exactly the same argument Sylvia Browne used on Larry King Live when someone had the nerve to ask why anybody needed her: what would people do if she weren’t there to tell them what is going to happen? I think he’s implying that the soothsayers and management consultants are useless. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2006, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-economics-an-empirical-or-an-axiomatic-deductive-science/349583/64 "2006-03-24T22:29:26Z")
> [@yBeayf](#): > > I think he’s implying that the soothsayers and management consultants are useless. Aren’t they though. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2006, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-economics-an-empirical-or-an-axiomatic-deductive-science/349583/65 "2006-03-25T12:20:10Z")
> [@](#): > > _Liberal_ > (2) What I don’t like about reading books about books about books is that the secondary and tertiary authors often have biases, and sometimes make outright errors in interpretation. It would be like studying philosophy by reading “All About Plato” instead of reading “Parmenides”. > > (3) Your argument about the soothsayers and management consultants is exactly the same argument Sylvia Browne used on Larry King Live when someone had the nerve to ask why anybody needed her: what would people do if she weren’t there to tell them what is going to happen? I think these are both very good points. There is countervailing difficulty in reading old economics books: grid reading. When you read a piece from Adam Smith it is really difficult not read into his writing more than is really there. Suitably interpreted _everything_ important in economics seems to be in Smith. When you read an old text, you’ve got to remember what they didn’t know. And that takes a lot of study. So much that you’ve not got much time to “do economics”. Your point 3 is what I was talking about when I said > [@](#): > > And that’s one ongoing difficulty with economics: “something beats nothing” vs “looking for the keys under the lamp-post because the light’s better than where I dropped them”. The reason I go along with the “something beats nothing” crowd as a policy analyst is that I _do_ think that work from a model that’s been peer reviewed numerous times, is publically available, makes its assumptions transparent, uses public data sources, allows replication of all calculation, never gives advice to government that can be kept secret etc _is_ a useful input into decisions. But I agree with Bob Lucas that “As an advice-giving profession, we are way over our heads”. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2006, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-economics-an-empirical-or-an-axiomatic-deductive-science/349583/66 "2006-03-25T16:32:14Z")
Thanks for that insight, Hawthorne. There are two reasons that I respect you as an economist and contributor to the boards: (1) you don’t hide behind any academic nonsense to defend your points, and (2) you listen to others. It’s as though you recognize that a man who is not an economist can still make a good point about logic and common sense. It’s too bad you don’t write about Austrianism more. Your kind of clear, to-the-point analysis would help others understand it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2006, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-economics-an-empirical-or-an-axiomatic-deductive-science/349583/67 "2006-03-26T17:02:03Z")
> [@TJdude825](#): > > Or, "If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. Or, “If all the feminists in the world were laid end to end . . .” No. I won’t go there. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![murphy54](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/0ea827/32.png) [@murphy54](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/murphy54)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-economics-an-empirical-or-an-axiomatic-deductive-science/349583/68 "2006-03-30T19:02:27Z")
It is an empirical science(because it is a science it is empirical).Because every science it is defined as a science if it agrees with the following terms:has certain rules ,methods unique to it(small version).But the very definition of a notion(methods,rules …so on)says that it is defined being given the current level of understanding…all in all for an entire definition it is applied a word that describes better that thinq and economics is gone. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-economics-an-empirical-or-an-axiomatic-deductive-science/349583.md?page=3)