Why do historians feel qualified to comment on economics?

Cherrypicking: The Thread

um, no. Interpreting the facts is exactly what they are suppose to do.

Has history contributed anything to mankind yet?

t. Veeky Forums

You know the history of science stuff you see at the beginning of your textbooks? that's because some historian compiled information into an easily digestible form

Have be contributed anything? It depends on the subject. From Hisotry we learn about from our mistake or able to determine how we got from point A to B and how we can continue on. It really depends on a specific question. Like if you apply it to the space race. Nope, not at all.

>Historians shouldn't interpret stuff, Math guys should

Good argument.

This is silly, we all know this is complete bull, especial considering the most famous examples are people in STEM trying into the humanities.

Why does everyone who isn't an economist feel qualified to comment on economics?

I'm a mathematician and I feel the anti humanities meme has really hurt our country in recent decades. I think it is even only typically expressed by undergraduates and into that population, freshman mostly. Educated people of any stripe like to ply their thinking abilities in a variety of subjects and even in the arts. It's very natural for such talented people to enjoy a wide selection of interests and topics. I can't think of a single colleague who focuses on their just their expertise. Of course it's wrong in general to speak outside of ones subject with authority but that shouldn't cast intellectual curiosity in a negative light. Beside, scientific learning is pretty limited outside of the hard sciences and most of the struggle between the humanities and the sciences takes place between the former and the soft sciences. And everyone knows they're just fags anyhow.

Because equality is such a good idea it must be promoted using fake science

*ahem* the spirit level *ahem*

Because it's personal.

Because economists are so bad at making predictions about the economy, that it renders their authority virtually nill.

>Index of problems goes from worse to worse

economics spend years on a theory that doesn't reflect social sensibilities, will never be practiced, and if practiced will probably only make the economy worse

so it's a crapshot I'll take seriously the Austrian and Chicago schools as soon as Austria and Chicago become economic powerhouses instead of irrelevant tourist place and shithole respectively

More like strawman: the thread

That is normally written by scientists, there are classes on [field]'s history for any major too.

Man, this is the most cancerous post I've seen this month, you deserve a prize.

>Why do historians feel qualified to comment on economics?

Economics is neoclassical brainwashing, while history shows actual applications of economics

How is economics any more of a pseudoscience than sociology? And why would history be any better?

Because economics is just the study of human trends, and historians are well versed in human trends.
Because language is intrinsically tied to culture, and politics is influenced heavily by the cultures from which the people involved originate.

>economics is a pseudoscience

You are probably either an ancap or a communist

I don't even care about what you're arguing about, but that is a shitty table.

Economics is more like astrology than it is like science, you're just as qualified to comment on it as a 'professional economist'.

The greatest sham of modern democracy and mass enfranchisement is the foolish belief that any common is capable of contemplating deep questions regarding the public good just as well as any expert. This leads to all sorts of idiocies such as people, who having slightly greater education than the common masses, believing themselves to be possessed of superior knowledge in all subjects pertaining to function of a nation.

>How is economics any more of a pseudoscience than sociology?

>Sociology not psuodoscience
Pro tip if it ends in ology it's probably psuodoscience.

History doesn't consider itself a science. We dont try to use the scientific method, we have our own method

>history of science

Literally worthless.

>unfalsifiable theories
>ridiculous assumptions
>ignores/contradicts results in other disciplines
>ignores/contradicts experimental results in economics
>ignores criticisms and internal contradictions
>unable to explain historical phenomenons

Please user tell me more of the rigorous experimentation behind the field of macroeconomics. Tell me more of the mathematical rigour in macroeconomics. Tell me more of the equations linking together interest rates and consumer demand and GDP.

Why is it better? Learn to reading comprehension.

Give actual examples of your claims.

Economists have for instance re-evaluated their views on minimum wage due to empirical research.

Kahneman won a Nobel Economics Prize for his work on cognitive biases. Behavorial economics studies how irrationality affects markets.

You seem like an edgy college liberal

He probably bases his views on the "fuck da system" doodle which is scribbled on his high school toilet door.

Biology
Epistemology
Epidemiology
Meteorology
Neurology
Immunology
Sexology
Seismology
Zoology
Theology

>Behavorial economics studies how irrationality affects markets.

Yes but how? There is no rigorous experimentation. Only endless reanalysis of data using statistical methods most economists don't even understand.

Furthermore, there have been thousands of instances where economic theory has proven woefully incapable of describing a situation or just flat out wrong.

When Obama produced his stimulus 8 years ago, it failed to do what he wanted it to do. When Republicans announced their tax plans 16 years ago it failed to do wanted it do. When free trade became status quo, it failed to do what people wanted it do.

>You seem like an edgy college liberal
>I think economics inflating it's self worth and status, therefore I am a liberal.

How is that even liberal. You are just assigning the status of enemy to anyone who disagrees with you, and immediately discard their opinion.

>Proving my point
Biology and it's derivatives are all on the line between pseudoscience and soft serve science.

Free trade has halved extreme poverty in the world in like a decade you retard.

How did the stimulus fail?

Temporary tax cuts aren't magically going to increase investment.

If you know anything about economics you know example already but fine:
>unfalsifiable theories
Value/utility.

>ridiculous assumptions
There's a shit ton to pick here. Homo economicus, rationality, increasing marginal costs, etc.

>ignores/contradicts results in other disciplines
>ignores/contradicts experimental results in economics
Economics completely disregards results in fields that should be extremely important to economics, such as psychology, sociology, neuroscience, political science, and even results in behavioural economics contradict mainstream assumptions.

>ignores criticisms and internal contradictions
Cambridge capital controversy is an ignored criticism, utility is at the same time ordinal and cardinal is an internal contradiction.

>unable to explain historical phenomenons
SEA development.

I'm not saying anything that epistemiologists don't say, stop pretending that i'd have to be edgy to say them.

Economics is a discipline that REQUIRES some level of historical understanding and, at the very least, SOME study of past economist views, who developed their theories based on systems of exchange which existed far into the past.

>economics is a pseudoscience
>I think economics is just saying things about trade
>i have no clue the level of analysis that people like Böhm-Bawerk or Irving Fisher added to the discipline

>Free trade has halved extreme poverty in the world in like a decade you retard

The underlying assumption of free trade is that it would benefit all parties involved, but it is clear that it hasn't. It has benefited some parties far more than others, and even produced net negatives in certain groups of people. Look at Haiti and how American Free trade destroyed their agrarian economy plunging their nation into even deeper poverty.

How does free trade also explain the rise of Japan during the Meiji restoration? Through selective tariffs the Japanese successfully became a global power.

>How did the stimulus fail
“Shovel ready was not quite as shovel ready as we thought”

It failed to do what it was promised to do.
>inb4 the crisis was just too great
Science is about making predictions. If your prediction fails your model is shit and needs to be reexamined. Anything else afterwards is meaningless sophistry until tested. Except in economics hindsight is the norm and where any all “thought” goes towards.

>Temporary tax cuts aren't magically going to increase investment.

I'm referring to the flat lining of wages relative to productivity and GDP growth. And 10 years is not temporary. Furthermore, last time I checked, it was supposed to increase investment.

>Irving Fisher
Are you serious?
>Prior to his theory of debt deflation, Fisher had subscribed to the then-prevailing, and still mainstream, theory of general equilibrium. In order to apply this to financial markets, which involve transactions across time in the form of debt – receiving money now in exchange for something in future – he made two further assumptions
>(A) The market must be cleared—and cleared with respect to every interval of time.
>(B) The debts must be paid. (Fisher 1930, p.495)
>In view of the Depression, he rejected equilibrium, and noted that in fact debts might not be paid, but instead defaulted on:
>It is as absurd to assume that, for any long period of time, the variables in the economic organization, or any part of them, will "stay put," in perfect equilibrium, as to assume that the Atlantic Ocean can ever be without a wave. —(Fisher 1933, p. 339)
>He further rejected the notion that over-confidence alone, rather than the resulting debt, was a significant factor in the Depression:
>I fancy that over-confidence seldom does any great harm except when, as, and if, it beguiles its victims into debt. —(Fisher 1933, p. 339)
Fisher would agree that modern mainstream economics, which, if anything, has become even more extreme in its assumptions of equilibrium and rationality, is a pseudoscience.

There's nothing particularly impressive/deep about Bohm Bawerk's work.

Why do medical doctors think they're expert investors?

>When Obama produced his stimulus 8 years ago, it failed to do what he wanted it to do.
Any stimulus does what the politicians want it to do short-term. It's the long-term effects that are worrying. Saying the stimulus didn't 'work' is a very uneducated statement. What do you mean by 'work'? It helped small businesses first and foremost, as most stimulus packages would. The right and left agree that it does help short-term.

Your implication that economics isn't a real science is laughable. There are economists who test and fact-check their claims rigorously. What you are talking about is institutional economics, and while institutions DO make their way into this theoretical field, it just doesn't make its way into certain ideas, depending on how basic they are. For instance, a lot of J.S. Mill or Irving Fisher's theories are largely independent of institutional analyses. Institutions like the Federal Reserve do make their way into the theory, but the basic core and tenet of much of their work is with abstract, undefined principles like the interest rates of banks as determined through supply and demand, and impatience to spend income. As opposed to Von Mises who determined the interest rates from politician's tendencies or objectives. This isn't to say, either view is necessarily wrong, it is just that the latter is a more political way of thinking about economics while the former is a more scientific approach. Perhaps you should refamiliarize yourself with what economics actually is: many different things.

There aren't very many countries on that graph...

The equilibrium in regards to an interest rate conforming to the impatience of the citizens and the overall willingness of the buyer to lend/borrow is a theory that is widely accepted and developed upon. He published something else at the time though, which is the tendency, as you put, of interest rate changes to lag behind price change rates changing (which is a mouthful, but is the only reason that the interest rate as you've put moves around so often.)

In my copy of The Theory of Interest and the Impatience to Spend Income... the interest rate never fundamentally rests at a single point. Fisher never actually stipulates it comes to rest, in fact, if you take the core of his theory, the interest rateis constantly moving around, being either apprehended or supported in a certain direction by changes in the Fed Funds rate.

they are well within the soft serve sciences

Thanks science!

Dunno OP, Black Science Man talks about politics, theology and sociology a lot

See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_deflation#Fisher.27s_formulation_.281933.29
The determinants of the interest rate (point 9) far exceed intertemporal maximization for the late fisher.
You might find the hayek/sraffa debate on interest rates fun too.

>Any stimulus does what the politicians want it to do short-term. It's the long-term effects that are worrying. Saying the stimulus didn't 'work' is a very uneducated statement. What do you mean by 'work'? It helped small businesses first and foremost, as most stimulus packages would. The right and left agree that it does help short-term.

Saying a stimulus built a road is like saying learning English as a subject is useless. It ignores the overarching purpose, which was to boost the economy into a state of recovery and quickly return to consistant high growth and pre crisis unemployment levels.

>There are economists who test and fact-check their claims rigorously
Micro probably, but I never argued against that. Tell me user how does a person test macroeconomics principles properly when one requires a nation to operate.

You can fit lines all you want to past random data, but it's meaningless until you set up an experiment with control of the variables.

If institutions not using sound theory to apply their craft isn't an indictment of the “soundness” of theory then I don't know what is.

It's not as big of a deal as you think it is. Economics doesn't hang on one little string. Fisher has said time and again, the interest rates are just remuneration for the specific person's inability to pay, or it's there for the chance they won't be able to.

The basic theories are important for what he was working on, but my copy has him explicitly stating that the interest rates never remain where they are. They are constantly moving. If you hadn't said anything, I would assume the inability of people to pay their debts were worked INTO his theory because of his idea of the rate of interest. The link is good, now what BOOKs have you read?

Tell me when they have proper mathematical rigour, and stop using p values as Gospel.

You're an idiot if that's your reasoning for determining that economics isn't a science. These are just terms, but it is indeed tested rigorously like a science. Most major economists who have anything to say at all say so in broad, sociological terms, starting from statistical analyses of first-hand accounts, broadly crossing this infantile 'micro'-'macro' barrier in your mind.

> It ignores the overarching purpose, which was to boost the economy into a state of recovery and quickly return to consistant high growth and pre crisis unemployment levels.
That's never been the purpose, even if they say it is, the purpose is to relieve a lowered reserve ratio or to relieve a lot of pressure of inflation from the population.

The debate is whether these stimulus' keep the economy healthy or not. The answer Von Mises would give us is 'yes they do for a short time, and for certain segments of the population'. The answer Irving Fisher would give us is 'it's just natural because of the lowered reserve ratio'. Some economists, don't answer ethical questions and end up just incorporating these adjustments in the distribution of currency into their policy, while other economists end up incorporating the distribution of the currency into a mental framework for the citizens and politicians involved. That's really the core of the debate. It's happening on a field quite radically different than politics when it comes to stimulus and economics, but almost every single economist agrees too many capital injections harm the economy.

If a specific person's inability to pay remained constant through time, should interest rates remain constant?
And what do you want, a picture of my bookshelves?

Just because there is little consensus among economist on what kind of countercyclical policy is the best doesn't mean that economics is a pseudoscience.

>When free trade became status quo, it failed to do what people wanted it do.

No it didn't

No, I'm just wondering what economics you're reading :3 Have you read The Wealth of Nations?

Not for that individual, no. If you mean people overall, systemic risk would go up, which would push the interest of safe loans down and mortgaged or subprime loans up.

Economics is a key factor in history.

Linguists is a key factor in politics.

Plus, well, anyone can comment on anything.

Though, on top of that, the folks of which you are referring to, and garner media attention, tend to have a broader range of education, and are often from the era where "Ph.D." lived up to its name.

Granted, there are exceptions, like how Bill Nye, whose only non-honorary degree is the equivalent of a technical school engineering degree, considers himself qualified to be a spokesman for theoretical sciences and publicly debate evolution.

>These are just terms, but it is indeed tested rigorously like a science

Fucking how user. Observing data found in the wild and then building complex theories around them isn't science. You need controlled tests.

Currently slowly reading An Outline of the History of Economic Thought when i find time from work + amateur programming + making a course + shitposting on Veeky Forums + life. In fact i should go buy a present for my nephew right now.
In any case, Fisher's point about "hoarding and slowing down still more the velocity of circulation" is much more in line with a liquidity preference theory of interest than with intertemporal preference/risk.

We've had this exact thread before.

Like I said, there are different kinds of economics. With Irving Fisher you will find standard deviations and coorelation coefficients, with Von Mises you will find no statistical fact-chēcking or graphs. :/

>In any case, Fisher's point about "hoarding and slowing down still more the velocity of circulation" is much more in line with a liquidity preference theory of interest than with intertemporal preference/risk.
It's both right? Or are you saying these are incompatible? I mean, you need liquidity and the interest rates for securities, the more liquid they are will be smaller, as stated by Fisher. But 'intertemporal' preference/risk sounds suspiciously a lot like exactly how Fisher describes human preference overall for money at a certain time compared to the future time periods.

Neither of those things are experiments. “Correcting” your data with coefficients and statistical analysis is no replacement for an actual controlled experiment.

>not interpret it
why do STEMlords feel qualified to speak on history

Mathematics is a science. How exactly do you perform 'experiments' in mathematics? Therein lies your answer.

>LAWS, GOLD MOVEMENTS, STOCK EXCHANGE SPECULATION, BANKING CUSTOMS AND POLICIES, GOVERNMENTAL FINANCE, CORPORATION PRACTICE, INVESTMENT TRUSTS AND MANY OTHER FACTORS WORK THEIR INFLUENCES ON THE SO-CALLED MONEY MARKET WHERE INTEREST RATES ARE DETERMINED. PRACTICALLY, THESE MATTERS ARE OF EQUAL IMPORTANCE WITH FUNDAMENTAL THEORY. WHILE THEORY, IN OTHER WORDS, ASSUMES A WAVELESS SEA, ACTUAL, PRACTICAL LIFE REPRESENTS A CHOPPY ONE

And here is the quote you/Wikipedia are referencing. It's simply just him recapitulating that his theory is just that: theory. Economics, like science, mathematics, and so on is simply a theoretical field.

Historian are irrelevant memesters so they try to compensate by attaching themselves to a field that possesses a semblance of seriousness and then parroting what they learned there.

Holy KEK, I embrace thee

>Free trade has halved extreme poverty in the world in like a decade you retard.

No that was the Communist Party of China and all of the poverty reduction in the last half decade was in China.

>inb4 you know nothing about China except memes and think 'opening up & reforms' means free trade or capitalism

one word: Tribology

>the only poor people that got lifted out of poverty in the last half decade were in china and china alone.

>all of the poverty reduction in the last half decade was in China.

>Mathematics is a science

Annihilate yourself. Mathematics is most certainly not science. In fact it is in many ways the opposite of mathematics.

So you are saying a requirement of science is empirical testing? How can't you test economic theories on real statistical data sets?

Mathematics being a science is a topic of debate

OKAY RANKEAN

LOL

They're pretty good at it, everyone just ignores or deliberately misinterprets them to fit their own narative

>So you are saying a requirement of science is empirical testing?

Yes. My point exactly.

>How can't you test economic theories on real statistical data sets?

Because those data sets aren't properly controlled. They nearly always result from a system with far too many variables in flux to be called a meaningful experiment.

>They nearly always result from a system with far too many variables in flux to be called a meaningful experiment.
This is a funny debate. You've essentially stated the point of economics. The entirety of the purpose of the field is to be able, in a vacuum, to commonly lay out general theories and trends that the interest rate/monetary unit(the object of focus will vary considerably) will follow when exposed to real conditions in the economic world.

Your stipulation is that these theories do not hold true, but if this were the case, they would not be theories at all. Every economist uses historical, empirical data to analyze current economic situations. They wouldn't be theories if they didn't check their history. For instance, Irving Fisher checks the theory of a rising rate of price changes having a higher correlation coefficient one year after the rise in the rate of price changes has increased by using data sets from not only different time periods, but including more variables than before as well.

There is absolutely no way he would have formulated these theories if he did not double check his facts.

Other economists like Von Mises or Keynes use a lot of terms and technical institutional analysis, but even they use historical, empirical data to support their theories.

>variables
This should be prices.

Big difference. Sorry.

>There's nothing particularly impressive/deep about Bohm Bawerk's work.
I can't believe this slipped my mind. The theories of Böhm Bawerk are literally mentioned in every economic work after he wrote his work in the late 19th century. His views of the preference of the marginal utility of present over future goods is extremely important to economic theories.

what is hing income inequality

>If you don't have proper mathematical riguor then you are not a science
Ok

It's not an underlying assumption, and Krugman won a Nobel for showing cases where it isn't.

Holy shit, learn a single thing about what you criticize.

How can economics be a key factor in history when the typical history major fails college algebra, nevermind other basic math like calculus?

And inb4 you say something: those "economics" majors who skip math are useless.

Are you familiar with any of the methodology used to study minimum wage, for instance? If not, shut up.

They are humanists so they can only feel. Some feel qualified.

>Your stipulation is that these theories do not hold true

I never said that, what I said is that economics is not a science. You can glean a lot of information from real world data sets, but in the end it's just that gleaning, not science.

>including more variables than before as well.
Literally the exact opposite of what he should have done.

Ignore the second half.

>History doesnt consider itself as science

What the fuck.
Do you mind elaborating your claim?