Economics

fuck no and the more you study it the more you'll agree

Certain aspects are interesting and without a doubt based in math. However it's often used to argue and establish a retarded philosophy.

so you refute my argument by negation without justification. Then you state "the more you study something, the more I'll agree" , which by that logic, If I study X, I will like it more, which obviously can't always be true.

Just because you study something doesn't mean you'll agree with it more. I could give you something to study, or continue to state that economics is a science, and give you reasons why, and you'll study them, but you won't necessarily agree with the knowledge of economics I present to you

FPBP, however economists have an absolutely atrocious track record of intellectual integrity with reconciling models and observed behaviours. Additionally the entire field is both intrinsically tied to political theory and is externally heavily politicized, notably the freshwater/saltwater division of schools of thought.

Why don't you go ask 1.4 billion Chinese people which economic policy is better?

You could be asking 3 to 4 billion Chinese people, but half of them were wiped out by economic policy over the last 100 years.

>are just set up the way they are
>money is a force of nature
wut

Lol is this just a pol-tard post? I don't understand. Of course Chinese communism was just a boot on the throat of the country's majority just as most dictatorships tend to be when there is zero concern for the people. Also this article is retarded. It just kind of states over and over that things became privatized. Yeah that tends to happen without communism. "PRIVATE SECTOR GREW BY BLANK". Yeah no shit because now it can. That doesn't mean China is really in that much better of a condition now. It just has a bunch of billionaires now who became super rich by replacing the boots of the communist regime and abusing asymmetries in international labor and business ethics--see literally any Chinese business. Anytime you see a (mainland) Chinese student in the US, chances are fairly high that their dad is a regime boot-licking billionaire. They are the only ones that can afford to leave that shithole. The vast majority of China is still rural poverty, and they definitely fudge numbers to make it not look that way.

absolutly not

that's the same thing as saying that lab rats are scientist

Yes. Most people have never read an actual economics text, and by actual economics text I mean something by John Von Neumann or Leon Walras.

Go read Taleb and find out that you've been studying pseudoscience.

The results can't be replicated in a lab, if that's what you're asking. Unless it's some sort of computer simulation. Not least of all because it'd be considered unethical, apparently. But there's more than enough historical data to study. It's empirical in that regard.

Wasn't Taleb an economist himself?

Is OP a shilltard or what?

Look, Marx, Hayek, Mises, these kind of people are not scientists, they're philosophers or ideologues. William Phillips may qualify as a scientist. People should worry less about the "truth" behind economics and start looking at reasonable statistical models used to explain some economic events, discard them or improve them depending on how well they explain it. In which case it's not much less of a science compared to, say, Physics.

>Yes, its a field where you create experiments
No it's not.

Brainlet, gtfo

if economics were a science, humans necessarily couldn't have free will and would be able to easily be manipulated mentally.

There certainly are branches of economics and types of research that involve experimentation. What do you think researchers do.

Even when you carry out an economic policy, is that not too, technically an "experiment" ?

Yes

Economics says if you are going to the market to buy apples, you are going to buy the cheapest apples you can find. But it doesnt say what kind of apples or how many. This is up to you and actually incorporated into the models, since every individual is modelled to have a unique preference curve (e.g. a free will).

Economics is a science, but it isnt an exact science. For example for Pluto you could say in 325 days it will be in this exact position. Obviously, you cant do that for economies. There is just too much unreliable data to do that. However, with the limited data it has, economics is relatively good at making predictions.

Definition of Science:
"the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment."

There's plenty of that in economics

'being good at making predictions' doesn't make something a science, if that was the case psychics would be scientists. science is by definition empirical. economics relies on theory, so it's not a science.

Complete horseshit. There is more than a little empirical reasoning in economic texts, most statistical models are built from past market performance.

Read some Irving Fisher or something.

'more than a little' means nothing. in order for something to be a science, it's basis must be completely empirical and it must have no room for 'interpretation'. economics is a social science, ie. not a science at all

the freshwater/saltwater distinction is outdated

>you are going to buy the cheapest apples you can find
What if I don't want cheap rotten apples? What if I purposely buy expensive stuff from expensive markets in posh neighborhoods to cultivate an image of myself as upper class?

econometrics: absolutely
economics: some assumptions about the behavior of people are overly simplified.

Some microeconomics is arguably scientific, e.g. social choice theory, applied game theory (if you don't mind calling it that), rational choice theory, decision theory, etc. At least economist in these field are working on rigorous mathematical formalisms of economics behavior. That being said, empirically speaking, they don't really described actual observed behavior, since humans are actually irrational. Behavioral economics, which is arguably a branch of cognitive science (or perhaps social psychology, although it's far more rigorous and scientific than most social psychology) does a better job of empirically describing human economic behavior, although it doesn't say much about the economy itself, but rather describes individuals in general.

Regarding your guys' points, there's actually a lot of debate in economics, the foundations of economics, and philosophy of science regarding theoretical models in economics, the mechanisms described in economics theory, and whether economics describes the actual world. The problem is, ceteris paribus clauses are sort of an easy cop out - the process of idealization and abstraction (which are distinct things) as it appears in economics results in theoretical models that not only don't accurately represent the target real world phenomenon, but actually don't represent any phenomenon in general (e.g. Hotelling's Theorem). At the same time, such clearly provide robust descriptions that are true, but counterfactual. Our models often present a scenario and describe a causal mechanism within that scenario that coincides with what we might in fact see in the real world, but it's not generally clear what components of the model pair up with real world phenomenon in a manner that preserves the mechanistic account provided by the model. Thus, it's not even clear whether our economic models are capable of explaining real-world phenomenon, considering they're not models of such real phenomenon.

Experiments are not replicable under tightly controlled conditions, so, no.

>Psychological derivations of curves
my sides

>does physics describe mechanisms of the real world? I would argue no because you can set up your experiments however you want. So it's math.

he picked a bad example since apples aren't equal, but you could say you're going for the lowest cost per unit of good apple.
>What if I purposely buy expensive stuff from expensive markets in posh neighborhoods to cultivate an image of myself as upper class?
If that image provides you a social status that will help preserve your wealth through connections or whatever, then that type of behavior is sustainable, if not then it won't be sustainable as you're just making yourself poorer for no gain. It's like "buying American", generally not worth it, very little people stick to this even if they believe that's what they should do, they just go for the cheaper.

The fact we have this thread weekly is evidence enough it's not.

That's what a rarete curve is, it is fundamentally psychologically derived from the different utilities different quantities of a commodity/good will have for a certain individual.

>in order for something to be a science, it's basis must be completely empirical
Bullshit, you don't even know what the term science actually refers to. In order for economics to be a science, rather than an art, it would have to be the type of economics which is primarily descriptive, which is entirely under the domain of some economists. The problem becomes when the economic system becomes PRESCRIPTIVE, then you run into 'arts' territory.

Most economics is a mix of both. I would be as unsurprised to see a B. A. in Economics as a B. S. in Economics.

Rather, I should say it is.

Every science hits a point where you're pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and the best you can hope for is "being good at making a prediction." A lot of economics pushes the boundaries of human knowledge because it's difficult to isolate each variable, and we are constantly revising our knowledge of how they affect each other and the whole. This is why microeconomics and the concepts that apply to individual actors in the economy are much more concrete than macroeconomics and the concepts that guide entire economies; the fewer variables that are in play the most easily we can identify what mechanism is acting and being acted upon.

Rip now I need to go update my knowledge

It's a valid point if the conservative Austrian school isn't clearly the stupidest thing ever.

In most other things conservatives have valid sway, especially political science itself. But when it comes to economics, and literally studying the effects of managed interest rates, there comes nothing better than a descriptive, quantitative analysis.

Trust me, there are some legit economists out there. You could spend all day reading some of these guy's mathematical proofs.

Irving Fisher, in particular, modeled his economic system after a machine that he built with tools. A picture of it is in Mathematical Investigations...

But really, just fascinating, fascinating stuff. Extremely complex and layered at times as well. Some authors use rigorous proofs and matrices. It's tough. I am reading Elements of Pure Economics by Leon Walras right now. It is very difficult. I have counted three times where I've disagreed with him, but for the most part it is extremely complex, dense, and rigorous, mathematically.

No its not. Economics is pure nonsense. Capitalism, communism , social democracy , its all bullshit.
youtube.com/watch?v=5bqPXqYWHlE

Is that katya clover in the background