Which school of economic thought do you prefer?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

isn't the Chicago school pretty much a variety of the Austrian?

To the extent that they have about exactly nothing in common (other than both are somewhat associated w/ political conservatism) this is rather funny ))  For the Austrian cultists Chicagoans are worse than the Devil reincarnate, much worse than the Marxists. For Chicagoans the Austrians don't exist.

you know what else is funny )))))) The Mont Pelerin Society

[ag]

However I'm skeptical that there is any difference between 'economic thought' and political preference.

That's because you don't really bother to learn economics

Actually no, the skepticism is the reason I didn't bother to learn economics.  I don't know much about religion either.

It's what we, economists, call the autarky equilibrium If you believe life is sh**t and can't be enjoyed, you'll wind up confirming your belief ))) Frankly, I find your intellectual autarky rather amusing )))

BTW, though a lifelong atheist, I am extremely fond of reading about religion )

[© tweed]

I'm not an economist, so I don't know. I'm aware of the political/policy differences between advocates of the Chicago and Keynesian schools (and think these are important, in historical terms, in their own right) but I don't know how they differ at actually looking at the workings of the economy; something that is, presumably, their main function as academics. I know very little about the way the Austrian school has looked at such things, and don't want to know more; I have no particular interest in seeing how sociopaths and their fanboys view the world. Marxism can mean any one of thousands of different approaches to almost anything and I don't know a thing about any specific Marxist approaches to economics as a distinctive subject. In any event, I'm not sure if you could honestly call such a thing Marxist given the massive importance of unity to Marxism. Marxist-influenced maybe (but how unusual is that in academia? All competent historians, sociologists and human geographers are Marxist-influenced, whether they want to admit it or not).

Ramble, ramble. It's late and none of this makes sense. Like life? No.

"get (your) ass over to the Fantasy Board and do your job" -anonymous Atlas poster that is not me

[phk]

Econometrics

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Neo-Keynsian

[muon2]

Econometrics

As a scientist I'm a great fan of econometrics. Philosophically, I'm most comfortable with the way the Chicago school has applied statistical methods to real world problems of the four listed. So I cast my vote that way.

[Vepres]

Chicago school by far.

Marxist-influenced maybe (but how unusual is that in academia? All competent historians, sociologists and human geographers are Marxist-influenced, whether they want to admit it or not).

That everything in society is an outgrowth of an society's economy? So unless you believe that a society's economy has zero impact on its non-economic features, you are, technically, Marxist-influenced, no?

[Хahar 🤔]

Marxism is just applied philosophy, which makes it a good deal more honest than the rest.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

isn't the Chicago school pretty much a variety of the Austrian?

What?  No, not at all, even though they often come to some of the same conclusions in support of minimal government interference.

I thought Hayek was instrumental in developing the Chicago school and the thought of people such as Milton Friedman?

While Hayek represented the moderate wing of the Austrian school, he still was unacceptable to the Chicago school. There's a reason why, when Hayek was invited to teach at the University of Chicago, it was with the Committee on Social Thought, not with the Chicago school of economics. There was a book I read a few years back called Vienna & Chicago which does a decent comparison of the two schools. The Austrian school is the true free market school, while Chicago is far less consistent and principled.

Anyway, though I have my disagreements, the Austrian school certainly makes the most sense among those listed here. Economics is not a science in the way that physics or chemistry are; it should not be treated as if it were.

[Mint]

Anyway, though I have my disagreements, the Austrian school certainly makes the most sense among those listed here.

How so?

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Anyway, though I have my disagreements, the Austrian school certainly makes the most sense among those listed here.

How so?

The Austrian school approaches the issue of economics as it should; by actually taking into account human behavior. Building upon human behavior, it keeps things simple and axiomatic. Economics is not a natural science.

Unlike say, Keynesianism, the goal of which seems to be to deliberately over-complicate the field of economics to make clearly destructive policies appear beneficial.

I must say, I certainly don't sympathize with the Hamiltonian crony capitalism of the American school...

[Mint]

I don't think tariffs are crony capitalism necessarily. I do think subsidies are generally bad policy but I agree with government owning some banks, regulations against speculation (derivatives), infrastructure development, etc. The American School makes a lot more sense to me than the so-called 'free market' economics we have now.

I must say though austrians make a lot of good points, certainly Faber or Schiff sound a lot more coherent to me than someone like Krugman even if I disagree with them on a fair amount... I was just wondering where you were coming from on this given your.. unique perspective.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

I don't think tariffs are crony capitalism necessarily. I do think subsidies are generally bad policy but I agree with government owning some banks, regulations against speculation (derivatives), infrastructure development, etc. The American School makes a lot more sense to me than the so-called 'free market' economics we have now.

Tariffs and subsides are both definitely crony capitalism. The State is punishing the population at large for the benefit of politically-connected big business.

Also I'm not quite sure how you can support both the American school and distributism at the same time. One is thoroughly Hamiltonian; the other, much more Jeffersonian. They're two diametrically-opposed visions for society.


Anyway I know that you know that what we have now is certainly not a real free market system.

[Mint]

Tariffs and subsides are both definitely crony capitalism. The State is punishing the population at large for the benefit of politically-connected big business.

Well that really depends. I think it makes sense to levy some sort of tax if there's wide disparities in terms of working conditions (e.g. worker's rights) in a third world nation compared to here, for example. Or if other countries manipulate their currency or markets in a way that's definitely 'protectionist' too. Of course some tariffs like the ones we have on sugar should be repealed definitely.

[muon2]

isn't the Chicago school pretty much a variety of the Austrian?

What?  No, not at all, even though they often come to some of the same conclusions in support of minimal government interference.

I thought Hayek was instrumental in developing the Chicago school and the thought of people such as Milton Friedman?

While Hayek represented the moderate wing of the Austrian school, he still was unacceptable to the Chicago school. There's a reason why, when Hayek was invited to teach at the University of Chicago, it was with the Committee on Social Thought, not with the Chicago school of economics. There was a book I read a few years back called Vienna & Chicago which does a decent comparison of the two schools. The Austrian school is the true free market school, while Chicago is far less consistent and principled.

Anyway, though I have my disagreements, the Austrian school certainly makes the most sense among those listed here. Economics is not a science in the way that physics or chemistry are; it should not be treated as if it were.

No, but economics has data from the real world as do physics and chemistry. There are theories in physics that are based largely on a neat set of axioms, yet find no testable conclusions. As pretty as such theories are I'm not a fan of those that resist testing by real data. Similarly, I find that the Austrian school seems to start from a pure axiomatic set of hypotheses and then draws those conclusions that can logically follow. But as with the aforementioned physical theories they fail to test their conclusions against real world data. They seem to expect real data to change to fit their conclusions, instead.

[ag]

Econometrics

Calculus. English. Econometrics is not a school of thought in any identifiable sense of the word

[ag]

Anyway, though I have my disagreements, the Austrian school certainly makes the most sense among those listed here.

How so?

The Austrian school approaches the issue of economics as it should; by actually taking into account human behavior. Building upon human behavior, it keeps things simple and axiomatic. Economics is not a natural science.

Your description is admirable in having exactly nothing to do w/ modern Austrianism The key feature of Austrianism is that it rejects empirical observation of human behavior. The "mainstream" economics, in contrast, is precisely based on modeling and analyzing human behavior. In fact, all of modern economics is precisely the science of human behavior.  Likewise, the formal axiomatic approach is anathema to the Austrians but is quite common within the "mainstream".

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Message from the moderator (ag):


Dear Libertas: my most profound apology: I accidentally deleted your post (pressed modify instead of quote: idiot me, the danger of being the moderator). I don't have the original text: if you still have it somewhere, please put it back. Otherwise, once again, my most sincere apology for being such an idiot.

[SPC]

Austrian.

[ag]

Human behavior cannot be predicted by empirical observation.

If that were the case, then opebo would have been absolutely right in his view of economics As somebody who's actually run lab experiments, I can assure you that human behavior is highly predictable )) There are extremely strong empirical regularities, replicated from lab to lab all over the world, believe it or not ))))))

What modern Austrians call "axioms" is, mostly, tautologies and logical tirivialities. That's actually the reason they hate math: when forced to use non-ambiguous language they are unable to hide that fact behind the meaningless verbiage, as they normally do. It's a religious cult, not a school of scientific thought.

[opebo]

Human behavior cannot be predicted by empirical observation.

If that were the case, then opebo would have been absolutely right in his view of economics

What's with the baseless, feeble insults, ag?  And all the smilies?  I suppose they were funny for a while, but are you going to continue it forever?

[ag]

Human behavior cannot be predicted by empirical observation.

If that were the case, then opebo would have been absolutely right in his view of economics

What's with the baseless, feeble insults, ag?  And all the smilies?  I suppose they were funny for a while, but are you going to continue it forever?

I don't deny: your posts amuse me ) I don't believe I was insulting you. I guess, there is no way you might suppose that I agree with you that economics is meaningless blabber. Whereas, were I to accept Libertas's point of view, I'd have to agree w/ you on that without reservation. If anything, that was almost an appreciation of your point of view )

[opebo]

...Whereas, were I to accept Libertas's point of view, I'd have to agree w/ you on that without reservation. If anything, that was almost an appreciation of your point of view

My views aren't based on human behavior being unpredictable, ag, though of course I am skeptical of such prediction.

You seem strangely cheerful - what's up? 

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Human behavior cannot be predicted by empirical observation.

If that were the case, then opebo would have been absolutely right in his view of economics As somebody who's actually run lab experiments, I can assure you that human behavior is highly predictable )) There are extremely strong empirical regularities, replicated from lab to lab all over the world, believe it or not ))))))

Sounds like bollocks to me. Evidence?

[ag]

...Whereas, were I to accept Libertas's point of view, I'd have to agree w/ you on that without reservation. If anything, that was almost an appreciation of your point of view

My views aren't based on human behavior being unpredictable, ag, though of course I am skeptical of such prediction.

You seem strangely cheerful - what's up?  

I just happen to have some sense of humor ) You should have noticed, I am very frequently smiling on these boards

All I meant to say is that if human behavior were unpredictable, I'd be in full agreement with you that economics is a piece of crap ))) That is, we'd be in agreement, if not on the reasoning, than on conclusions.